May 5, 2014 | Read Time: 5 minutes
Melanie Ulle tried three times for a master’s degree in public administration at Denver-area universities, but all three times she dropped out.
It’s not that Ms. Ulle, a fundraising consultant who previously worked full-time for both the University of Colorado Foundation and the Denver Art Museum, couldn’t handle the work. She just didn’t feel like she was learning anything she hadn’t already picked up from her years in the fundraising trenches.
And the teachers often left her unimpressed.
“There are a lot of fundraisers who have been able to fly under the radar and become successful because of gifts that are going to come in with or without them,” Ms. Ulle says. “When I’ve taken classes, it’s those people teaching: They’re just sliding through.”
In 2009, Ms. Ulle finally found what she’d been looking for: the Institute for Leaders in Development program, which allows early- and mid-career fundraisers in Colorado to learn from some of the top people in the field.
Real-World Topics
The program, supported by local grant makers, is brief and cheap. Seven full-day classes are held once a month on Fridays from September through April.
The classes cover topics like fundraising ethics, planned giving, and nonprofit finance, and each participant is connected with a mentor. The program costs $350, but employers pick up the tab for most participants.
So far, 70 people have completed the program. A survey conducted by the institute last year found that graduates reported high job satisfaction and had stayed at their current organizations about 3.4 years, longer than the national average.
A 2013 survey of 1,750 members by the Association of Fundraising Professionals found that half of the responding fundraisers had been in their current positions three years or less.
Ms. Ulle says the program differed from her prior forays in higher education by featuring frank discussions about the real-world challenges fundraisers face.
Among the scenarios the students debate: If a donor gives you a Prada wallet, what do you do? How do you politely decline the gift without jeopardizing the relationship? And should you maintain a friendship with a donor or keep a businesslike distance?
“We were learning from the greatest fundraisers in the Denver area, and they were being completely honest with us,” Ms. Ulle.
Emerging Leaders
The Bonfils-Stanton Foundation helped organize the program in 2006 after program officers at the foundation noticed weak grant applications and a lack of professionalism from some local charities whose programs nevertheless deserved support.
“Even if the programs were fantastic, that was not being reflected in the proposals,” says Gary Steuer, the foundation’s president. The grant maker reached out to a small group it called “Denver’s development deans”—senior fundraisers who were successful, happy with their work, and eager to nurture successors.
Those top fundraisers shared Bonfils-Stanton’s concerns. Some, for instance, had trouble finding people who could win big gifts.
Jennifer Darling, senior vice president in charge of fundraising at Children’s Hospital Colorado Foundation, was then at the Denver Art Museum. She commiserated with the top fundraiser at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science about how neither could find a qualified big-gifts fundraiser.
Bonfils-Stanton provided $10,000 to get the institute started, and many of the senior development officials that the foundation had sought out agreed to serve as instructors.
The program takes 15 to 17 students a year. Applicants must have at least three years of fundraising experience. “They have to be an emerging leader,” says Ms. Darling, who discusses strategic fundraising during one of the institute’s daylong sessions.
Feedback From Experts
Because the program participants have already logged some time on the job, the instructors are better able to discuss coping strategies with fundraisers who already know first-hand how stressful the profession can be, Mr. Steuer says.
“Being a development professional is like being an actor—you have to learn to deal with rejection,” Mr. Steuer says. “Over time that can become emotionally draining.”
The program, he says, focuses on questions like: How do you deal with a CEO who thinks you should be able to snap your fingers and make money materialize? What do you do with board members who don’t understand their role in the fundraising process?
The institute concludes with a project in which each student applies something he or she has learned to figure out how to solve a problem at an organization. A panel of local experts provides feedback on the student’s presentation.
Building Connections
As the reputation of the institute has grown, it has begun to attract participants from throughout Colorado, including a young fundraiser from the Creede Repertory Theatre, at a four-and-a-half-hour drive from Denver.
The University of Denver provides classroom and administrative support, even though the institute is a noncredit program and has no interest in seeking accreditation. “We cross-promote,” Ms. Darling says. Fundraisers who want a “deeper dive” are encouraged to explore the university’s master’s degree in philanthropic leadership, which features courses offered by some of the same fundraisers who teach at the institute.
Bonfils-Stanton continues to provide $10,000 a year to the institute, and several other prominent Denver funds—including the Anschutz Family Foundation, Boettcher Foundation, and the Daniels Fund—also support it.
Ms. Ulle says one unexpected benefit of the program has been the relationships she has maintained with other fundraisers who participated alongside her.
“I’m friends with every single person that was in that program,” she says. “I ask them for advice all the time.”
