Making the jump from admissions to fundraising in higher education isn’t really that big of a leap.  In each area, you’re marketing the college to an audience in an effort to increase their affinity towards it.  You’re marketing an intangible product, so for both areas you really have to sell the student experience.  You produce publications with lots of smiling faces, put on events to give prospects that warm, fuzzy feeling and send out emails to get your audience to take that desired, timely, call-to-action.  You have hard-and-fast goals to reach - either a dollar value or an enrollment number.

However, there are also some obvious differences - “selling the dream” to prospective students is a lot different than “selling” it to alumni who have already lived it and may or may not have had a good experience at your school.  In admissions you’re only selling to one generation/age group whereas with fundraising, your message has to be more timeless.  In admissions, you have helicopter parents to deal with whereas in fundraising, you have spouses.  

The largest difference I’ve seen between the two areas is timeframe - in admissions you see life year-to-year through each recruiting cycle.  In fundraising, you see it by campaign, with each campaign spanning over several years.  It’s ironic, then, that one of the ways in which I’ve seen admissions really outwork fundraising is in the way of long term lead cultivation.  Admissions really gets it - they know that they have to “work” prospective students as young as 14-years-old to set themselves up to meet their enrollment numbers when those 14-year-olds turn 17 and start applying for colleges.  So they plant the seed early and come back to take care of it often through targeted communications and events over those intervening years. Fundraising doesn’t do this well with their lower dollar prospects.  They work them year-to-year - if they don’t give one year they try the same strategies on them the following year and expect them to work.  Isn’t that the very definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?

One argument I’ve heard is “that’s alumni relations job!” and I call BS.  If you want to get technical, university-wide communications/public affairs/whatever you call it at your school is responsible for the public face of your institution and one COULD argue that it’s really their responsibility to cultivate prospective students through their efforts before they hit that magical junior/senior year when admissions takes over.  However, targeted cultivation with an end goal (giving/enrollment/whatever) in mind is VERY different than an informational resource.  Alumni relations doesn’t have the end goal of giving in mind, so it’s going to be near impossible to get them to target their efforts towards that goal.  Same with public affairs and enrollment.  Fundraising offices need to follow the lead of admissions offices, take the bull by the horns and do it themselves.

To all the fundraisers out there, I ask you this question: What percentage of your population doesn’t give?  How much more could you be bringing in if they did?  Perhaps its time to try something other than this instant gratification only strategy with them, since clearly the current strategy is not working.  Yes, it’s going to take time (hence “long term”) but put the effort into it and you will eventually see results from it.