Remarks at the National Support Higher Education Day Presidential Luncheon, CASE Annual Assembly,Washington, D.C.

July 16, 1981

Robert L. Payton

Exxon Education Foundation

When I was asked to speak at this luncheon the suggestion was that I talk about the relationship between the associations in education and the educational institutions. The program reports that I will talk about the contributions made by the associations to education. What in fact I will talk about is the central preoccupation of the institutions and the associations and those who are involved in philanthropy -- namely, fund raising:

The important political, economic, and social right to ask for money and to give it.

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Back in 1957 when I joined the development program of Washington University as an editor there was a lot of talk about making alumni relations and public relations and fund raising more "professional." At that point the emphasis was not on making individuals in the field "professionals" (although that was considered important, too). The principal emphasis was on raising the level of dignity of the activity itself. Alumni relations had become a kind of fraternity party road show, public relations was an endless flow of superficial press releases, and fund raising wasn't talked about in polite company.

At that time CASE was two organizations, one called the American Alumni Council and the other called the American College Public Relations Association. There was a great deal of conflict between them, primarily related to who was going to control fund raising, the newcomer euphemistically called "development." In some places -- Washington University was one -- development won out. Although there were theoretically three functional programs involved, the department itself was called "development" and fund raising was its first priority. Alumni and public relations fought over which would be the second priority.

The "professionalization" process was designed to bring dignity as well as efficiency to fund raising. No one suggested that fund raising be called "fund raising" -- the word "development” was to suggest a higher level of aspiration, above what most people seemed to regard as a grubby and degrading necessity. During the first four years I worked at Washington University I worked on the public relations side. (We called it "university relations" because it, too, needed a little more class.) The other five years I worked in development. Those five years as a development administrator and then seven years elsewhere as a university president gave me some sense of what fund raising is all about. During most of that time I also had the opportunity to be involved in institutional planning, in trying to articulate the goals and purposes of the institutions where I worked.

Most of you have shared in this process in one way or another, and from my present vantage point I can say with some confidence that many of you, even now, appear to be engaged in fund raising.

The received humor in my present line of work is that raising money is a dreary chore and that giving money away is delirious fun.

True.

But the problem I want to talk about is the quandary we face because fund raising has such a bad reputation. We have a system of higher education that depends in significant and often critical ways on voluntary financial support. At the same time we share cultural values that make the process of generating that financial support increasingly difficult.

Ours is a textbook example of cognitive dissonance. We know that we need the voluntary support, yet we don't feel comfortable about asking for it. To resolve the dissonance we have to reach a higher level of understanding of the problem.

There are undoubtedly many reasons that one might give for the ambivalence about raising money. Let me mention a few:

1. The first reason for ambivalence is that everyone would prefer to have been born rich. To be less than independently wealthy is to be dependent on others for economic survival. Ambivalence toward fund raising has its roots in wishful thinking. The deepest reason for our ambivalence toward fund raising is this resentment of the feeling of dependency it sometimes generates.
2. A second aspect of our ambivalent attitude is that raising money is a process of persuasion rather than demonstration. The facts of the case are not sufficient to bring forth the funds. We have to persuade others to act as we want them to.
3. Third, the process of asking for money is thought to be demeaning from one point of view, and manipulative from another. There is some ideal relationship (we seem to think) where self-interest, on either side, is not a factor.
4. Finally, fundraising, when successful, entails gratitude – expression of gratitude, at least, which reinforces the sense of dependency which in turn reinforces feelings of inferiority.

Mature and responsible people don't have these problems, but some of us do. I don't want to argue at all that these are defensible attitudes, or that everyone holds them. What I will argue is that they exist, that they are held by a great many people, and that they undermine and threaten our system of voluntary support.