AUDIO | Philanthropy Expectations Mark CE’s Move to the Center of Institutions
The
increasing pressure on CE administrators to win philanthropic donations
marks the movement of CE units from the periphery to the core of the
institution.
The following interview is with John LaBrie, dean of the College of Professional Studies and vice-president of Professional Education at Northeastern University. Higher education is evolving, and continuing education (CE) is changing right alongside it. This means CE leaders are constantly on the lookout for new opportunities and are taking on new responsibilities to adapt to their changing roles and institutional expectations. In this interview, LaBrie sheds light on one of these new roles for CE leaders: philanthropy.
1. Why have philanthropic endeavors typically been seen as outside the role of CE units?
Many CE units at universities and colleges were established as an
add-on to fill up space and deliver their curriculum to an extra
audience above and beyond their traditional core audience of students.
In many respects, the traditional CE unit was justified as a way of
using excess resources that the university had; either the space or the
educational capacity. It always had the perception to many people within
the academy that it was a ‘cash cow’ or that it had a revenue
generation motive.
Many CE units never got involved with philanthropy since they didn’t
conceptually see themselves as an agent that would be seeking additional
funds for their core mission. They’ve always interpreted their core
mission to be funded by the marketplace they operated in. … The business
model for the CE unit always had, as the underlying assumption, the
need to bring in additional revenues [that] would then be handed off to
the core institution. Philanthropy was just never on their radar because
that’s not what their focus was.
Over the years, what’s happened is many CE units have never developed
any kind of infrastructure or any kind of notion of philanthropy within
their student population even though, in many cases, their student
population certainly justified the size to merit a philanthropic
endeavor such as an alumni fund or an annual fund which could have been
operated out of the CE units.
2. What has caused philanthropy to become more central to CE’s mission in recent years?
Philanthropy is becoming more important for CE units primarily
because the landscape of higher education is changing. Higher education
obviously needs a revenue source to operate. Increasingly at public
institutions, the state governments have been hesitant to increase
funding to universities to continue their mission across the board.
Fundraising for the public sector has become a major endeavor to
increase revenue streams for the university, broadly.
At private institutions, fundraising has always been a very active element in their resourcing and business models.
As funding and competition increases in higher education, CE units
are increasingly being asked to become part of a philanthropic drive
within the larger university since universities are looking to expend
their alumni base and their donor base.
Should CE leaders be expected to pursue philanthropic contributions?
3. Do CE leaders have any particular ‘competitive advantages’ when it comes to philanthropic outreach?
In many respects, because we’ve built our programs around various
student populations and viable markets, we’ve not historically looked at
our student base as a particular place to think about philanthropy. But
increasingly, what has become the case in many CE units that have
chosen to engage with fundraising and advancement activities is the
notion that many of their programs and the outreach they do to student
populations go hand-in-glove with a philanthropic outreach mission.
For example, many of the students who are participating in CE units
that offer a degree completion program, for example, will have students
engaged in those programs who have had a life story many donors find to
be very attractive. … Donors increasingly want to see results, and CE
units have come to the realization that many of their student
populations that they’ve served as part of their core mission are also
the very same student populations [philanthropists] foundations are very
interested in.
CE units across North America really have seen their student
populations over the last decade as a real competitive advantage in the
fundraising makeup. … If we can position our student population to match
the mission of the foundation, in many respects, we adapt very well to
the philanthropic community’s interest. So CE has become a major player
in many capital campaigns at universities across the country.
4. Why is pursuing philanthropic contributions beneficial for CE units?
In many respects we have come into our own as a profession within the
structure of many of our universities and increasingly there is the
expectation of academic units seeking a philanthropic component within
their school’s architecture to the same degree that we would see within
traditional colleges and schools within the academy. Historically, we’ve
always seen schools of arts and science have a philanthropic agenda
within a research university and increasingly CE units or schools such
as mine, Northeastern, are also seen as needing a philanthropic agenda
to continue our funding and to continue the scholarship pool for our
students.
In many respects, I see what some may interpret as a pressure to go
out and do fundraising, I interpret [it] as a realistic and a very
positive sign that CE units are coming into their own within the family
of a research university and being held accountable at the same
standards of our sister colleges and units within those structures.
5. Is there anything you’d like to add about CE leaders
stepping into the role of pursuing philanthropic contributions and how
this role will continue to evolve over time?
I find it remarkably empowering to be able to sit down with donors
and tell our story. In many respects, philanthropy and advancement are
often negatively viewed by some individuals who have not been engaged
with that activity within a university. But in reality, once you sit
across the table from a donor and are able to articulate your vision for
a program and to receive scholarship money that then empowers students
to actually be able to pursue their college education, that’s a very
empowering aspect on a personal level and it has become, for me
personally, one of the most enriching elements of my work within a
university. …
I would encourage those schools that have not developed a strategy
for fundraising to really start thinking about how they would position
themselves within that space within their own university context.
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Key Takeaways
- Increasing pressure for CE leaders to seek out philanthropic contributions is a marker of the growing importance of the CE role in the wider institutional landscape.
- Seeking out and receiving philanthropic contributions plays into the access mission that brought CE leaders to the profession in the first place.
- The story of students served by CE units is often very appealing to donors, and their drive to succeed plays into donor desire to see results.
