Jerold Panas is executive partner of Jerold Panas, Linzy & Partners, consultants in campaign services and financial resource development. He is chairman of the Institute for Charitable Giving and is considered one of the most quoted and quotable lecturers and writers in the fundraising community.
Well aware that fundraisers are often portrayed as people with one hand out and the other in your pocket or stereotyped with worse images, Panas encouraged the participants at an Association of Lutheran Development Executives conference with this uplifting story. It also appears in his book Born to Raise, Pluribus Press, Inc. 1988. It appears here with the permission of the author.
I was particularly moved by something that happened to me recently. I won’t use the right names. That would be too close to home. But other than the names, everything else is exactly as it happened.
The president of a college asked me to join him in calling on the chairman of his board. It was a natural. The college was involved in a $70 million campaign. The president and chairman were close friends and the chairman was very wealthy. In a sense, I was going along for the ride, to be used as an outside voice. But the president didn’t need any help. He did it all.
The president--I’ll call him Simon--and I went into the chairman’s office. Let’s call the chairman Tom.
I wish you could have been there with me. It was magnificent...the best lesson I’ve ever had in fundraising...a graduate degree. Here’s what happened.
We spent a few minutes just chatting and then Simon started. "Tom, tell Jerry how you happened to come to our college as a student. It’s a great story."
"Well, it’s really the most important thing that happened in my life," said Tom. "I was the last of four children and none of my brothers or sisters was able to go to college. We just didn’t have enough money. My high school counselor told me about this small college that had a scholarship given by an anonymous donor. He thought I might qualify. I visited the campus and fell totally in love with it. You wouldn’t believe it...I not only got the scholarship, but they let me wait on tables, wash the dishes and do the landscaping around the campus. I was able to get all of my tuition free and work for my room and board. It was wonderful.
Simon interrupted: "That’s a great story, but tell Jerry how you happened to meet Susie. That’s really very special."
"Well one day, I was raking the leaves and I looked across the quadrangle and I saw this girl and I thought, "Lord, she’s beautiful." I’m going to marry that girl. I threw down my rake, ran across the quadrangle and introduced myself. I chased her for two years and she finally agreed to marry me. We were married in the college chapel."
Simon then talked to Tom about his gift to the campaign. It was a very persuasive request but the truth is, Tom really sold himself. Simon merely provided the opportunity. He’s a master at it. Tom made a gift of $6 million to the campaign.
I’ve thought a great deal about that meeting and what happened. I ask you, who is the real hero that story?
"The hero is Tom." Wrong! Tom had the money to make the gift. More than that, everything he had in life he owed to the college. He’s not the hero.
"The hero is President Simon. He got the gift." Wrong again! Simon was in the best position possible to get the gift. He was a friend of the chairman, probably his best friend. And anyway, the chief executive officer of an institution or a staff person is most often the best person to get the gift.
"The hero of the story is the anonymous donor who provided the scholarship." Well, still not quite right...you’re wrong again.
The real hero of the story is the original fundraiser who persuaded the anonymous donor to make the gift and establish the scholarship. That scholarship made possible the $6 million gift to the campaign...and the fundraiser did it. He or she, whoever it was, is the hero.
I’ve thought a lot about Tom’s gift...and the anonymous donor...and the hero--the fundraiser. How wonderful to be in a profession where we all have the opportunity to be heroes. How glorious to be part of a bold adventure...to have that sense of mission and opportunity...working at great causes and with magnificent people.