Ten things I have learned working in advancement

During a recent mentoring session with a client I was asked –?‘Alastair what are the most important lessons you have learned so far over your career?’

Wow there is a question for the ages I immediately thought!

After twenty plus years working in the education advancement sector, the question did get me reflecting on my career and reminiscing about the great organisations and many wonderful people I have met along the journey.

The question also got me thinking too, about what I might have done differently had I known what I know now and of the many challenges facing the profession globally.

So in this article I thought I would share some of my personal insights from my career to date in advancement. Why did I choose to narrow my list down to ten you ask? Well, no reason really, other than I suppose it’s better than nine!

Whilst it wasn’t easy to narrow down the list to just ten, my key learnings below have had the greatest impression on me and underline just how privileged I’ve been so far to work in such a diverse, exciting, and yet always challenging profession.

So here are my top ten career learnings (at least so far)…

1. Education has immense power to change the world

This is my numero uno by a fair margin.

In my experience, education really does have the power to change the world and it’s why I chose so many years ago to work in the sector. Ultimately, I wanted (and still want) to help provide quality education opportunities for anyone that seeks to better themselves and their station in life

It may seem idealistic; however I believe education when used for the greater good has the power to change the destiny of humankind, countries, the environment, our health, and our world. Throughout history have witnessed this and we still see it every day around the world.?

Advancement has the potential to be at the forefront of making this positive change happen by facilitating for education opportunities – whether it is providing a quality private education for someone who couldn’t otherwise afford it, raising funding for vital health research or building cutting edge education facilities, or establishing scholarships to reward excellence – it can help us build a better world.?

Who wouldn’t want to work in a game-changing environment like education advancement?

2. Advancement isn’t rocket science - it’s about relationships

Now repeat after me -?to achieve success in advancement it all comes down to effective relationship building!

I don’t know how many times over the years I’ve seen some contemporaries attempting to turn the art of alumni and donor engagement into something akin to rocket science, using all sorts of weird formulas, platforms, and justifications and usually failing dismally to achieve anything of significance.

From years of working in the field, achieving success in advancement has always (and will always) come down to the ability to do two primary things - the effective creation AND maintenance of mutually beneficial relationships with people – advancement is nothing more and certainly nothing less.?

Like with any personal relationships, this requires some key elements such as the building of total trust, effective two-way communication, consistency of effort, empathy, and unfailing honesty.?

I’ve never seen any advancement program succeed without these basic foundations present – not ever!

3. Treat advancement as the true profession it is

Advancement as a profession is a tough gig and often for those working in the sector, we can be our own worst enemies in that we don’t treat it as the true profession it really is.

Given all the challenges we constantly face in advancement, it is important that as professionals we team together and share our many ideas, challenges, and frustrations with each other, to keep developing and improving on what we do and supporting one another.

As a profession, advancement continues to have one of the largest churn rates of staff in the education sector. Long hours, unrealistic demands by leadership, changing strategic goal posts, inconsistent resourcing, and an overall lack of appreciation for what we do as professionals are cited by professionals as some of the many reasons for these high attrition rates.

That is why it’s so important that as professionals we mentor and support other advancement professionals. We need to share our experiences through industry associations like Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and EducatePlus, to help develop our approach to craft and mentor others to do likewise – and hopefully with the result that we retain as many advancement professionals in the profession as possible long term.

4. Know the strategic why of your program

Now it’s time to get a little more strategic with my number 4!?

Before you even think about writing that next advancement plan, stage another alumni event, or ask for donations, you need to be very clear on your strategic intent, as this will provide the roadmap for all future engagement efforts in your program.?

If you can’t articulate your strategic WHY, then work with senior leadership and colleagues to extrapolate this out, and importantly get consensus on this throughout the organisation. If consensus can’t be achieved, save yourself the time, resources, and guaranteed heartache, and reconsider your entire approach – and should you even have an advancement program.

I’ve NEVER seen any program succeed where the fundamental element of WHY could not be clearly and easily articulated. After all, if you don’t know your WHY, then your intended target audiences will have no hope either and will result in nil return on investment.

5. Don’t get bitter, get better!

It is a fact of life that advancement programs never have enough resources, enough budget, enough staff, or even large enough office spaces to get done what needs to get done consistently well and professionally.

So I’m going to share a small piece of advice from an old mentor of mine that I’ve often recalled over the years – ‘When lacking resources - don’t get bitter, get better!”

The moral of my story here is, rather than throwing the toys out of the cot and getting despondent over a lack of resourcing support from senior leadership – get over it and get better at demonstrating the impact of what you do and how your advancement program helps to achieve the overall strategic goals of the institution.?

Learn to do this effectively and in my experience, more resources and support will eventually come your way.

6. Alumni and fundraising go together like ‘peas and carrots’

"We were like peas and carrots, Jenni and I."

I’ve always loved this line from the classic 1990’s movie,?Forrest Gump?and I can’t help but bring it to mind whenever I think about the vital interrelationship that should exist between alumni relations and fundraising.?

Alumni relations and fundraising must, and I repeat MUST always be part of the same operational unit (just like peas and carrots) to achieve the strategic goals of any institution - big or small.

The most recent global CASE statistics indicate that the number of advancement programs that have fundraising and alumni separated out from each other in their organisational structure is very high (around 70%). I find this approach just staggering.

Over the years it has continued to bewilder me how often alumni and fundraising work in total isolation within large and small education shops I see and continue to see the same pedestrian results. I once even worked in an environment where the two areas viewed one another with suspicion and even borderline professional hostility.

From years of research and first-hand experience, the most successful advancement programs, are seamless relationship-building machines, where alumni relations works in close partnership with fundraising, and often along with marketing and careers development to help achieve the strategic goals of their institution in the most effective way possible.

I’ve never yet seen an example of where what I term ‘bubble working’ has ever achieved long-term success in the industry. However, if you do have an example where it has worked, please share it with me and I’ll gladly eat humble pie with those peas and carrots!

7. Use the KISS method: Keep It Simply Sustainable

A few years ago I was asked to provide advice to a senior academic who wanted to commence an alumni network for their faculty. The academic had an exciting engagement vision, had done her research and knew implicitly the WHO, WHY and HOW of her intended program.?

Despite this, the academic was downcast, and lamented that she had zero resources to do anything… or at least that is what she believed.?

We met over coffee and talked about her proposal, and during the discussion, the academic mentioned about all the ground-breaking research that the faculty was doing, and about some interesting public lectures coming up that would be given by a renowned academic. She also recounted to me, the impressive global successful stories of their graduates and outlined the many other public-facing activities the faculty was undertaking over the coming academic year (yes pre-COVID).?

Hearing all this, I was led to ask whether faculty alumni were ever invited along to these events or encouraged to be immersed into its research programs - ‘not usually’ was her surprising reply.?

My next question was, 'would and should your alumni know about your research and upcoming events program?' – ‘maybe not and most definitely’ was the reply.?

My last question to the academic was, 'why then aren’t they being given the opportunity?!?'?

Suddenly, a flicker of life became apparent in that academic’s eyes.

I went on to share some advice with that despondent academic, and it is the same advice that I want to share with you now.?

Keep your advancement program simply sustainable. By that, I mean seek out, consolidate, and leverage off what you are already doing as an institution before considering investing into anything new and wasting valuable resources.

Another important factor is to ensure consistency of approach in everything you do with your advancement program. The very best programs that I’ve seen globally, ensure that the difference between the best and worst elements of their programs are non-existent in the eyes of their audiences.?

Aiming to take a simple strategic approach will help you to develop a more consistent and sustainable program, and one that your stakeholders will be proud to support.

8. You can’t say thanks enough…

A wise old math teacher of mine once taught me - "Thanks is a small word that takes little but means much.”?

Little did I realise it at the time, but I can’t tell you how important that ‘little word’ would become over the course of my career in advancement and how vital it is to use often to achieve success and longevity in the advancement profession.

Whether it is directed at donors, alumni volunteers, clients, staff, colleagues or just those willing to provide you with some advice or mentoring, two things I’ve learned is that you can never thank your supporters enough and when that little word is used sincerely, will only result in further good will coming your way.

9. Do the small things consistently well

You might have guessed by now as an education consultant; I love to advocate how small sustainable actions add up to create real momentum when it comes to advancement programs.

Along these lines, I always found where you do the small things consistently well in a program, the big things will inevitably look after themselves.?

This doesn’t mean you should neglect the big-ticket items, however where the small things are done consistently to a high standard and time and time again unfailingly – such as the implementing basics of relationship-building, the big things such as large donations and high-volume alumni engagement will always follow.

10. Remember to have fun!

To round out my top ten career learnings, I’ve left the most important until last and that is - never forget to have fun working in advancement! Otherwise what is the point?

Everyone loves to be part of something fun - right? Sometimes we can get so busy as advancement practitioners that we can often forget to have some fun and take the time out to enjoy and celebrate what we do and achieve along the way.

From my experience, when you and your staff are having fun and are?really?enjoying their roles, it permeates down throughout the entire organisation, and like moths to a flame, it inspires greater participation from your alumni and supporters, encouraging them in the process to support you even more over the long term and even have fun themselves along the way!?

At the end of the day, life is too short not to enjoy it and working the advancement profession is no different!

Conclusion

I’ve had a great ride so far in my advancement career, where I’ve had the chance to travel the world, meet some truly inspiring people, promote the benefits of education, and learn some invaluable life and career lessons – and I hope you have experienced something similar.

So on that note I’ll leave you with one more additional learning (and my favourite saying) – remember to always dream big because then?everything?becomes possible!?

*Alastair Lee is an international award-winning senior thought leader in the Australian education advancement industry and has held many key leadership positions over the last two decades in enrolment marketing, alumni and fundraising with Deakin University and University of Tasmania.?

He is also the Founding Director of AlumGrow Consultancy – a firm specialising in enrolment marketing research, brand development and advancement strategy for the education industry.?

Alastair can be contacted via email?[email protected] ?or telephone +61 458 545 184.

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