Don’t Undermine Donors’ Trust

To the Editor:

Big-money donors responsible for the establishment of the nascent Center for Excellence in Higher Education, in Indianapolis, (“New Center Aims to Give Higher-Education Donors More Powers,” October 4) send a dangerous message to their peers about exerting power over colleges and universities by advising donors on how to attach enforceable restrictive conditions to their gifts.

The center’s focus on curbing colleges’ discretion in how they spend donors’ contributions, even long after donors have died, sets a bad precedent for determining who actually controls the academic freedom and future of an institution, negates the very altruistic nature of making gifts, and generates unhealthy relations between nonprofit institutions and their benefactors.

Further, the reverberations of this attitude toward giving will be felt by all nonprofit organizations that seek and accept large gifts from donors.

The billionaires Bernard Marcus and John Templeton, along with the John William Pope Foundation, have established an organization that in effect promotes placing limitations on academic freedom and the flexibility of institutions of higher learning to respond to the changing educational landscape.

Mr. Marcus and Mr. Templeton made their fortunes by managing their businesses within their areas of expertise, responding to the needs of their customers or clients, and performing as well as, if not better than, their competitors. By encouraging donors to attach legally enforceable conditions to their gifts, they are demonstrating a lack of faith in institutional leadership to manage academic programs and growth within their areas of expertise.

Donors also restrict the responsiveness, flexibility, and autonomy that enabled their business models to operate and grow in a competitive environment. Colleges and universities face the same challenges of operating in an environment in which they are competing for high-performing students, quality professors, and donors.

Fifty years ago, few people would have envisioned the advances in technology or changes in globalization that are commonplace in today’s society. These changes have been met with appropriate strategies within institutions of higher educationa across the board, including curricula, organizational structure and development, faculty development, courses of study, and fund-raising campaigns.

A gift made 50 years ago may no longer have the same relevance, meet a pressing need, or garner the same level of support on campus. Then again, it may be in even more demand. The best use of that resource within the broader scope of a donor’s intent can only be determined by the institution.

Institutions of higher learning spend significant time and money developing strategies that guide their work — strategic plans, campus master plans, capital campaigns, and curriculum reviews, to name a few. By encouraging donors to place intense restrictions and conditions on gifts, the center is undermining the autonomy of the institutions that are operating in a constantly changing and demanding environment.

The Center for Excellence in Higher Education should focus its attention on instructing donors on how to build mutually beneficial relationships with institutions that are built on understanding the dynamics under which colleges and universities operate.

The center’s current aim will only generate contentious, mistrustful relationships between donors and colleges. Donors should seek to understand the institutions’ current and future needs and enter gift agreements that recognize the donors’ intentions while respecting and even deferring to the institution’s insight and knowledge regarding the most effective use of the gift.

In the end, colleges and universities are responsible for meeting the needs of their most important constituency — their students. Gifts made with the donors’ desire for control as a strong motivating factor may ultimately limit the very ideals their gifts are meant to support — campuses that foster the pursuit of knowledge and the exploration, growth, and free exchange of ideas.

Ericka Seth
Interim Development Director
Baltimore Educational Scholarship Trust