Teaching your Old Dogs all about your New TricksWhen Dartmouth began admitting women in 1972, some loyal alumni donors protested the change and stopped giving. Dartmouth had always been a men’s institution and not everyone thought that opening the doors was such a good idea. The same thing has happened again and again at institutions across the country that shift their strategic plan as community needs change. It’s a rock vs. hard place issue. Loyal donors who have supported you for years are valued members of your institutional family. Yet, the strategic plan has yielded a plan that outlines a changing tide. How can balance be achieved? First and foremost, open the strategic planning process to your leadership donors, even (especially) if you know they’ll offer an opinion that challenges current popular opinion. You’ll need a strong facilitator to manage the process. Second, keep those individuals who haven’t been directly involved in the strategic planning process informed. If they’re important enough to your institution to work directly with your development officers, somebody on your staff we’ll have an inkling that there might be trouble with some of your strategic plan. Honor their long-standing relationship with visits from leadership. Be ready to discuss new directions in the strategic plan, and ready to accept criticism for the change without defensiveness. If donors simply can’t accept your new directions, work with them to find areas of impact they can feel good about supporting. Even if you’ve added a wrinkle to your mission, chances are that there are strong vestiges of your original purpose for them to hold onto. If they can’t, and you’ve done all you can, let them go. Donors change. Sometimes, after a donor has left your organization, he or she will miss the work you were able to accomplish together. Sometimes, it’s a done deal. Regardless of how your long-standing donors might react to your strategic plan, the only responsible course of action is to try and bring them along from the beginning. Then, if it’s not in the cards that they stay, you’ll know you did all that you could to steward them right.
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December 2009:Archived Newsletters |
