Development

The heart of the school

Development offices are an increasingly important feature in fundraising in independent schools. Tim Edge begins a series of articles on the challenges faced by headteachers and governors when setting up an office

There is little doubt that schools development is a boom industry. An increasing number of schools recognise the need to establish a development office to raise capital and revenue funding. Development professionals also play a crucial role in helping to establish and support a “community of goodwill”, the active and well-informed set of school “constituents” that is essential to successful fundraising and marketing activity.

Who do you want?
In attempting to attract the strongest range of candidates to development roles, a number of schools are fishing outside the established development pond in an effort to appeal to professionals from other sectors. These individuals bring with them a range of transferable skills but very often no direct experience of the education world. How then can schools maximise their chances of recruiting and retaining such candidates?

The first rule of thumb is that the job description should reflect the passion of the headteacher and governors in relation to the uniqueness of the school and what makes it special. Such passion, crisply articulated, is invariably infectious. A succinct statement of “who we are and what we stand for” can go a long way in persuading candidates from commercial backgrounds to take a leap of faith.

Equally important is to stress the unanimous commitment of the headteacher and governors to the development programme and to emphasise that the work of the development office is pivotal to the future prosperity of the school.

Setting the standards
A good job description will also stress the school’s commitment to training and developing its staff. Many candidates with no experience of the education sector will be reassured by the prospect of comprehensive induction, training and mentoring. This can be offered via a fundraising consultant and supplemented with informal mentoring from experienced development professionals already working in the field (contact the Association for Marketing and Development in Independent Schools, through www.amdis.co.uk).

Take a broad approach
It is quite common for job descriptions to be prescriptive about “essential fundraising skills” or “a proven track record in education”. I believe strongly that schools that adopt this approach are limiting the field unnecessarily by excluding many talented candidates from related but not directly comparable disciplines. It is, in my view, much bolder and more imaginative to state that fundraising experience is not essential as full training will be given. You can train candidates with the right personal attributes to acquire the skills necessary to become effective fundraisers. The converse is considerably trickier!

Key ingredients
An infectious enthusiasm comes close to the top of the list, as does resilience, self-motivation and excellent organisational skills. Courage and self-belief (provided it stops short of arrogance) are also vital characteristics. Many of the best development directors possess the knack of being good strategists while still retaining the ability to roll up their sleeves and immerse themselves in the detail when required.

Good development directors tend to be facilitators, happiest when working behind the scenes, rather than basking in the limelight. Finally, it is crucial that you recruit the candidate who best fits the culture of your organisation and has demonstrated during the interview process that they relate strongly and sympathetically at a range of different levels, from captain of industry to the humblest member of the kitchen staff.

Find an affinity
I often tell people that raising money is not the most important part of my job. What use is a list of major gift prospects, assiduously researched, if none of them has a real affinity for the school? It is the nurturing of relationships over time which is the real skill: the settingup of systems and mechanisms to keep your school community in touch with the progress you are making and actively involving them in your success wherever possible. Development directors therefore should have a flair for communicating and networking and should relish the challenge of establishing a true “community of goodwill” from which, in time, sustainable income will flow.

Appropriate targets
Interviewing panels should be able to demonstrate that they have considered the size of operational budget that the development director will be granted to run his/her department. In an office start-up, it is prudent to allocate 50 per cent of the first year’s operational budget to salaries and on-costs for the development director and a development secretary. The remaining 50 per cent should be allocated to setting up the office infrastructure and systems, establishing a database, carrying out prospect research, and preparing the initial promotional tools.

It is essential that headteachers and governors set realistic, medium-term targets for the development office, particularly for income generation. There is no quick-fix solution. Development systems and cultivation programmes need time to bear fruit and target-setting should reflect this. It is realistic to expect the development office to make a loss in year one, break even in year two, with net profit for year three and beyond. From year three onwards, an appropriate cost versus income ratio is somewhere between one in six and one in ten.

Beyond mere finance
It is important not to judge the development office solely on financial performance. Targets and timetables should be set for attaining those infrastructure milestones essential to the establishment of a successful development operation, such as the implementation of an effective database system or the recruitment and training of the rest of the development team.

Creative methods should also be put in place for measuring the effectiveness of the development office in establishing the “community of goodwill”. Attendance at events can be measured over time as can the numbers of “constituents”, previously dormant, who have been persuaded to play a more active role in the school. Many schools have found it valuable to establish a small, tightly focused development committee to assist the development office in its work. The role of this group is to help the development director set the strategy and to monitor output against agreed targets. Ideally, every development committee should include at least one professional fundraiser from another sector to provide a fully independent view.

In my experience, a development committee can provide an effective link between the development office and the governing body. It is also ideally placed to assist in setting realistic targets and managing the expectations of those within the school community who anticipate an unrealistic instant return on the school’s investment.

Tim Edge is development director at St Edward’s Oxford, having previously performed a similar role at Worth School.

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