Dear Development Office Of [muttermuttermutter] College:
When my law school sends me a solicitation to donate and fund scholarships or otherwise participate in fund-raising, it doesn’t bug me. I’ve given in the past when I’ve been able to afford to do so. Lawyers’ finances being what they are outside of the circles of Biglaw firms, sometimes I can donate and sometimes not so much.
When my undergraduate university solicits my money, same thing. I’ve been given much by the university, and again when I’m able to do so, I enjoy giving back.
But when the university I teach for as an adjunct sends me a development letter, it makes me wonder what the hell someone was thinking. You’re paying me how much money again? And you expect me to give you some of that back?
It’s somewhat inconvenient for me to teach adjunct classes. On an Air Force base an hour’s drive each way from my house. It’s a fun way to make extra money, sure, and more dignified way than selling my blood plasma for money. But the point of my doing it is to make extra money. Even if I had the extra money on hand right now, you wouldn’t be getting it. You’re the ones I’m looking to so that I can be in the position of having extra money in the first place.
If you want to get money out of me, you’re welcome to make me an offer that will involve you paying me a high enough salary to teach full-time that I’d be willing to consider quitting my day job to do it. That’s called a faculty position. And you know what? I’m not particularly looking for a Biglaw attorney’s salary to do a job like that.
But I’m also not looking to make three grand a semester and only get paid when you’re able to line up enough students to make this worth your while. Make it worth my while, and the development office will probably hear from me.
Until then: to the round file with you!
Would you feel better or worse if you found out that they’re sending that same letter to their unpaid interns?
If you don’t make any calls, you’ll never make any sales.
Burt was in the pile of leads that Shelley Levene gets. The Glengarry leads are for closers.
(Coffee’s for closers!)
Go. To. Lunch.
Slow clap.
This reminds me of something of an oddity: I have never – not once – received any solicitation of money from Southern Tech. I repeat: Never. Not once. They have my address as I have purchased various sports tickets to athletic events. Unless the athletics department is legally barred from passing the info on to the general fundraising department. But not even the athletics department has hit me up for money.
At this point in my life, I’m kind of glad. But the university would probably be better off with a little pestering.
“You’re paying me how much money again? And you expect me to give you some of that back?”
Hey, it works for lottery winnings.
Burt,
I know exactly what you mean, as I get those, too, and they irritate the snot out of me.
But here’s a bit of perspective that may help the disgruntledness. Foundations that give money to places like colleges/universities consider, among other factors, the percentage of people at that college/university who give. From what I was told by our former development director, it’s not even the total amount given but the percentage of people who give that really matters. It as thought they’re saying, “If the folks there won’t support the place, why should we?” So the school hopes they can get as many employees as they can to give something.
And, yeah, that’s weird, in that I’m an employee, the school is supposed to be paying me, so why am I asked to support them? It’s like taking a pay cut, really. And it’s even more bizarre when you’re an adjunct, there’s no doubt about that.
So of course the system gets gamed a bit. One of my colleagues doesn’t ask for reimbursements on all receipts that plausibly could be reimbursed, and asks the school to count that as a donation. I donate 5 bucks a paycheck and have that dedicated to a restricted account that’s under my own control. So if I top out my professional account and need some more books, I can tap into that, or I use it to buy snacks for students on my environmental politics field trip, etc. As an adjunct you may not be able to do that, of course, but just as insight on how this ends up playing out.
This.
At our school, we always aim for 100% staff/faculty giving, because then the development office can go to the other constituent groups and say, “These people believe so much in what they do that all of them, despite their meager salaries, contribute in some way!” Apparently, that is a big deal to be able to do and greatly impacts giving elsewhere.
Now, some schools game the system a bit. For instance, at one school, the faculty members in charge of drumming up interest included $1 in everyone’s envelope so that even if you did nothing, you contributed simply by not taking that $1 out. So, we had 100% out of the gate between two kind souls donated extra in the name of others.
But, yea, that’s why they do it.
What’s more bizarre than the gaming is that the groups that give don’t seem to grok how easily their standard is gamed. If any of them are looking for a rational choice theorist to explain to them how the world works, my consulting fee is modest.
The problem is that there doesn’t really seem to be a good metric for these things. Post-graduate employment? Pretty easy to game (ask any law school). Post-graduate salary? I’m not sure colleges and universities don’t just make that one up (I guarantee you their methods for finding them out are unsound). How their football teams do? How many buildings they put up in the last 5 years (answer at the average state university: approaching infinity)? The number of parking lots they have while it still remains impossible to find a place to park? How many students have names beginning with the letter R?
I imagine the big donors are thinking, “Well, if everyone’s gaming the system, then the relative amounts may tell us something (even if it only tells us that this school is better than that one at gaming the system).”
It seems to me that if you’re giving, you’d just take a hard look at the specific program your money’s supposed to fund (few donations are just general endowment ones; nearly all go to a specific project or purpose).
But I don’t run a foundation, so maybe there’s something I’m missing.
I suppose, but I think that sort of donating tends to come generally from some sort of connection to the program, at least from what I can tell.
I don’t get donations to universities. It’s not a complete waste, sure, but of all the ways one could spend money to improve human welfare, donating money to help students of American colleges strikes me as a pretty lousy choice. And a law school specifically? Who asks himself, “What’s the most important problem that I could donate money to help solve?” and comes up with “This country just doesn’t have enough lawyers?”
The problem being solved is, “What way could I improve my child’s chances to get into ___?”
It’s a form of reciprocity. Your tuition didn’t pay the full cost of your education, which was made possible by the donations of earlier alumni. Now it’s your turn.
But it’s not, since you’re not paying back the donors. And if you’re going to pay it forward, there are much better options.
You realize you’re on opposite sides of Milton Friedman on this, right?
On what, specifically?
He released a video a long time back contrasting how Dartmouth worked with how UCLA worked. He made a point to talk about how alumni donations (and the students working for said donations) were an important component of the superior Dartmouth model.
Furthermore, not everyone going to the university you went to is paying out of pocket or with student loans. Some of them get scholarships, based on merit or need. The money for those scholarships has to come from somewhere.
I’m not a big fan of scholarships in general. They’re not bad, but they usually go to people who who would do just fine taking out loans. Why give charity to current or future members of the middle class?
Eh, I do wish scholarships were allocated somewhat differently, but the student loan system is broken, so I find it to be a poor substitute for either merit or need-based scholarships.
It’s more like donating money to a friend’s public art initiative. Is it the most-constructive use of the resources possible give an all possible utility-enhancing uses in the world? No. Is it even necessarily the best public art initiative anyone in town might have on their drawing board? Quite possibly not. Still and all, what’s not to get? He’s your friend; he’s helped you out in the past; he’s got a productive initiative going on whose aims you support. So you give.
It’s surely not the most important problem I could donate my money to help solve. But maybe it pleases me nevertheless. And as we know, people give to charities which please them and make them look good, not necessarily the ones that will do the most good.
Who asks himself, “What’s the most important problem that I could donate money to help solve?” and comes up with “This country just doesn’t have enough lawyers?”
Totally with you on that.