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Strategic support for philanthropic fundraising: a needs analysis of development officers in higher education

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Content Running head: STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 1

Strategic Support for Philanthropic Fundraising:
A Needs Analysis of Development Officers in Higher Education
by
Lori Kathleen Chan Velasco

A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC ROSSIER SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF EDUCATION

August 2019

Copyright 2019 Lori Kathleen Chan Velasco
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 2

Dedication
I dedicate this dissertation to my family who taught me about the gifts of education,
dedication, and hard work. It is through your experience and role modeling that I love education
and believe in making a difference. I love and cherish you all. I feel indebted to those who gave
generously and believed in me and my family. May we continue to strive to help make many
great opportunities possible for the current and future generations. Thank you for serving, giving
back, paying it forward, championing advancement, expanding educational opportunities for
everyone, and leading positive change to make an even brighter tomorrow.

STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 3

Acknowledgements
This academic dream would not have been possible without a phenomenal circle of
support. I wish I could acknowledge everyone who has contributed along the way.
Thank you to the outstanding faculty and staff members of the University of Southern
California Rossier School of Education. Thank you for developing the Organizational Change
and Leadership program and teaching and guiding us on this exciting exploration in education
and research. Thank you to my wonderful dissertation committee, Dr. Helena Seli, Dr. Kathy
Stowe, and Dr. Deanna Campbell, for your encouragement, compassion, time, and contributions
to this once-intimidating and overwhelming process. You enhanced my knowledge and
motivation and offered invaluable suggestions. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work
with such amazing educators and leaders over the years. To Dr. Seli, I recognize how extremely
fortunate I am to have had you as my dissertation chair. Thank you for your expert guidance and
advocacy. You talked me through complicated cases and lifted me up. I am in awe of the
unwavering care and concern you have for all your students. Your efforts on our behalf have
been incredible, especially with your multitude responsibilities with work and family. You
dedicate so much attention to every one of your many students, and you drive us to succeed.
You are a gem of a mentor and educator. Thank you for challenging and supporting us.
To the remarkable rogue change agents of Cohort 6, thank you for teaching and helping
me in many ways throughout this adventure. You are an exceptional group of diverse, brilliant,
talented, fun, and honorable leaders. I truly enjoyed this experience we shared and already miss
our regular courses, chats, and exchanges. Thank you for the lively discussions, respectful
debates, thoughtful outreach, many laughs, and friendship. I appreciate you more than you will
ever know, and I wish each of you all the best. Thank you, and Fight On!
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 4

Thank you to the Trojan Family, my mentors, collaborators, and all my friends. To
Guille, you have been there from the beginning, and my appreciation runs deep for your heartfelt
coaching and support. Special thanks to April and Vanessa for lending your perspectives and the
collective naming effort with Grace, Arlene for checking in on me, my professional colleagues
for so openly sharing your insights and trusting me with your contributions to this work, and
scholars and practitioners for valiantly driving positive change. To Chris and Robert, thank you
for leading the cavalry. To MacLan and Khoi, thank you for cheering me on, adopting us into
your family, and putting up with my nose always being stuck in the books. Thank you, all.
Thank you to my entire loving family. To my extraordinary parents, Wayland and Betty,
thank you for giving me a strong foundation and being my shelter, role models, and constant
source of inspiration. You taught me to do my best and to value learning. Thank you for aiding
thousands and teaching generations. Thank you and Mary Yee Ma for your sacrifices and doing
so much for me, your grandchildren, all your loved ones, and anyone who comes into your orbit.
You go above and beyond for me and many others, and I will never be able to thank you enough.
To my best friend and husband, Merrick, and our sunshine, Brandon and William, there
are not enough words to thank you for your tremendous love, patience, understanding, and
encouragement as we took this journey together. Sums, thank you for being the best partner and
for nurturing and fueling me and our family. BB and Liam, you are the most beautiful gifts.
You often got up in the middle of the night and fell asleep in my lap as I completed my studies.
You never complained and genuinely only wanted the best for me. I hope you will always dream
big, cherish learning, discover new worlds, be true to yourself, care, share, and help. Thank you
for seeing me through and going on this marathon with me. You are my reason for being, and
you inspire me every day. Thank you for being my home, my heart, and my stars forever.
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 5

Table of Contents
Dedication ....................................................................................................................................... 2
Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................... 3
Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... 11
Chapter One: Overview of the Study ........................................................................................... 12
Organizational Context and Mission ...................................................................................... 13
Organizational Goal ................................................................................................................ 14
Related Literature .................................................................................................................... 15
Importance of the Evaluation .................................................................................................. 16
Description of Stakeholder Groups ......................................................................................... 17
Organizational and Stakeholders Groups’ Performance Goals .............................................. 19
Stakeholder Group for the Study ............................................................................................ 20
Purpose of the Project and Questions ..................................................................................... 22
Methodological Approach ...................................................................................................... 23
Organization of the Project ..................................................................................................... 24
Chapter Two: Review of the Literature ....................................................................................... 26
Influences on Development Officers’ Performance and Tenure in Higher Education ........... 27
The Pressures of Time and Relationship Building in Fundraising ................................... 30
Fundraising as an Emerging Field .................................................................................... 33
Complicating Organizational Factors in the Turnover Problem of Development Officers
........................................................................................................................................... 36
Potential Interventions to Improve Performance and Retain Development Officers ....... 37
The Clark and Estes (2008) Gap Analysis Conceptual Framework ....................................... 39
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 6

Development Officers’ Knowledge, Motivation, and Organizational Influences .................. 41
Knowledge and Skills Influences ...................................................................................... 41
Motivation Influences ....................................................................................................... 46
Organizational Influences ................................................................................................. 51
Conceptual Framework Integrating Development Officers’ Knowledge, Motivation, and
Organizational Context ........................................................................................................... 57
Chapter Three: Methods .............................................................................................................. 67
Participating Stakeholders ...................................................................................................... 67
Interview Sampling Criteria and Rationale ....................................................................... 68
Interview Sampling Recruitment Strategy and Rationale ................................................. 70
Document Review Sampling Criteria and Rationale ........................................................ 71
Document Review Recruitment Strategy and Rationale .................................................. 72
Data Collection and Instrumentation ...................................................................................... 73
Interviews .......................................................................................................................... 73
Documents ........................................................................................................................ 77
Data Analysis .......................................................................................................................... 78
Credibility and Trustworthiness .............................................................................................. 79
Ethics....................................................................................................................................... 80
Limitations and Delimitations................................................................................................. 85
Chapter Four: Results and Findings ............................................................................................. 88
Participating Stakeholders ...................................................................................................... 89
Findings................................................................................................................................... 90
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 7

Research Question 1 Findings: Knowledge and Motivation Influences on Development
Officers ............................................................................................................................. 91
Research Question 2 Findings: The Interaction Between Organizational Culture and
Context and Development Officers’ Knowledge and Motivation .................................. 128
Summary ............................................................................................................................... 165
Chapter Five: Recommendations ............................................................................................... 172
Recommendations for Practice to Address the Knowledge, Motivation, and Organizational
Influences .............................................................................................................................. 173
Knowledge Recommendations ....................................................................................... 173
Motivation Recommendations ........................................................................................ 176
Recommendations Related to Organizational Influences ............................................... 180
Integrated Implementation and Evaluation Plan ................................................................... 183
Implementation and Evaluation Framework ................................................................... 183
Organizational Purpose, Need, and Expectations ........................................................... 184
Level 4: Results and Leading Indicators ......................................................................... 185
Level 3: Behavior ............................................................................................................ 186
Level 2: Learning ............................................................................................................ 190
Level 1: Reaction ............................................................................................................ 194
Evaluation Tools ............................................................................................................. 195
Data Analysis and Reporting ................................................................................................ 196
Summary ............................................................................................................................... 197
Future Research .................................................................................................................... 198
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 200
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 8

References ................................................................................................................................... 203
Appendix A: Interview Protocol ................................................................................................ 223
Appendix B: Document Review Protocol ................................................................................. 231
Appendix C: Immediate Evaluation Instrument ........................................................................ 233
Appendix D: Participant Pulse Check Completed During Training .......................................... 234
Appendix E: Blended Instrument for Use Immediately Following the Learning Program ....... 235
Appendix F: Blended Instrument to Use for Delayed Use After the Learning Program ........... 237
Appendix G: Data Analysis Charts ............................................................................................ 239

STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 9

List of Tables
Table 1: Organizational mission, organizational global goal, and stakeholder goals .................. 19
Table 2: Development officers’ knowledge influences ............................................................... 46
Table 3: Development officers’ motivation influences ............................................................... 50
Table 4: Brandiam Schools' organizational influences ................................................................ 57
Table 5: Summary of participant demographic information by tenure ........................................ 90
Table 6: Averages of self-reported ratings of the levels of knowledge and self-efficacy of the
fundraising phases by development officers stratified by years of tenure .................................. 103
Table 7: Summary of key findings and nuances of interview participants’ responses .............. 167
Table 8: Summary of knowledge influences and recommendations .......................................... 174
Table 9: Summary of motivation influences and recommendations ......................................... 177
Table 10: Summary of organizational influences and recommendations .................................. 180
Table 11: Outcomes, metrics, and methods for external and internal outcomes ....................... 186
Table 12: Critical behaviors, metrics, methods, and timing for evaluation ............................... 187
Table 13: Required drivers to support critical behaviors ........................................................... 188
Table 14: Evaluation of the components of learning for the program ....................................... 193
Table 15: Components to measure reactions to the program ..................................................... 195

STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 10

List of Figures
Figure 1: Conceptual framework depicting the KMO influences ......................................60
Figure 2: Summary of participants' ratings of knowledge and self-efficacy ...................102
.

STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 11

Abstract
With decreased funding, rising costs, and increased competition, institutions of higher education
face a heightened need to raise funds from private philanthropic sources to sustain their programs
and services. Development officers have become vital to shoring up financial gaps. Educational
fundraising generally involves cultivating positive relationships with charitable donors over time.
It is important for organizations to support and retain development officers to be efficient and
effective in philanthropic fundraising. This study explored the needs of development officers at
the Brandiam School, a pseudonym. Their highest priority was to fundraise for scholarships to
support the recruitment and retention of a diverse and talented student body. The Clark and
Estes (2008) gap analysis framework was adopted for a needs analysis of the knowledge and
skills, motivation, and organizational resources necessary for development officers to achieve
their fundraising goal. The findings from this study revealed an asset of self-efficacy and
remaining needs of development officers’ procedural knowledge of the fundraising solicitation
cycle, metacognitive knowledge about evaluating and improving their fundraising skills, value
orientation about individual goals, and organizational influences that were specific to the context.
The New World Kirkpatrick Model (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016) was used to design an
integrated implementation and evaluation plan with recommendations for practice. The
recommended two-part learning program was designed around the end goal of optimizing
development officers’ performance in philanthropic fundraising and, ultimately, for the
organization to enhance capacity and retention of high performing development officers to
maximize their positive impact through education.

STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 12

Chapter One: Overview of the Study
With decreased funding, rising costs, and increased competition, institutions of higher
education in the United States face a heightened need to raise funds from private philanthropic
sources in order to sustain their programs and services (Cheslock & Gianneschi, 2008; Iarrobino,
2006; Mann, 2007; Stephenson & Bell, 2014; U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2014;
Weerts & Ronca, 2009; Wilson, 2015; Zeidenstein, 2011). Higher education has suffered from
steep declines in traditional sources of funding, such as the U.S. Department of Education
budgets (U.S. Department of Education, 2016d). Other situational threats include the increased
competition for talent and organizational reputation (Oliver, 2007; Weerts & Ronca, 2009) and
the growing need to increase awareness and efficacy value with prospective donors about their
impact on an institution’s need for support (Weerts & Ronca, 2009; Mann, 2007). Tuition
typically covers only 60-80% of operating budgets (Iarrobino, 2006), and even less so (51-57%
based on 2009-2015 data) for the four-year private nonprofit segment in the U.S. (U.S.
Department of Education, 2016a; U.S. Department of Education, 2016b). Rather than outprice
students with drastic tuition increases, colleges and universities are forced to diversify and find
alternative sources of revenue. Financial aid, of which scholarships are one form that can be
merit- or need-based, has been found to be a factor in the persistence and graduation of students
in higher education (Millea, Wills, Elder, & Molina, 2018; Whalen, Sanders, & Shelley, 2010).
Development officers, also known as gift officers and fundraisers, have become vital to shoring
up financial gaps in higher education. These funds are needed across the institution, including
for scholarships that recruit and retain high achieving and high potential students.
Fundraising success is largely determined by institutions having enduring positive
relationships with prospective and current donors. Relationships with donors often take time to
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 13

develop (Iarrobino 2006; Knowles & Gomes, 2009; Sargeant & Jay, 2004; Thomas, 2010).
Development officers generally do not achieve consistent productivity until years four and five
(Thomas, 2010), however, their average tenure hovers at around 16 to 24 months (Rothenberg,
Hurley, Nagaraj, Tyndall, & Martin, 2014; Thomas, 2010). It is important to understand the
needs of development officers to be successful with achieving their fundraising goals. As the
demand for effective development officers grows, so do their opportunities to leave their
organizations for a variety of reasons (Croteau & Wolk, 2010; Edgington, 2013; Oliver, 2007).
The research on the still maturing field of fundraising highlights that many organizations are not
effectively developing and retaining development officers (Iarrobino, 2006). The problem of not
developing and not retaining high performing development officers affects the momentum that
an institution has with its donors (Iarrobino, 2006) and can substantially depress total fundraising
and hinder the institution’s achievement of its current and aspirational goals. The organization’s
ability to retain development officers and have them perform successfully, ultimately, impacts
the organization’s ability to support students through higher education.
Organizational Context and Mission
The Brandiam School of Management, Leadership, Business, and Workplace Excellence
(pseudonym) is a professional school within a large elite private research institution of higher
education in the United States. The school offers bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in
several disciplines of business and accounting; full-time doctoral programs in the areas of
accounting, finance and economics, management, marketing, operations, and statistics; research
centers; and executive education. The mission of Brandiam is to educate and train leaders to be
well prepared to confront critical problems being faced in business. The school’s raison d’être is
to improve business and society through the good work of students and thought leaders, today
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 14

and in the future. Brandiam’s advancement department, which includes development, alumni
relations, corporate relations, and administrative staff, furthers this mission by engaging alumni,
families, businesses, and friends to contribute their time, expertise, and philanthropic gifts to
advance the business school and community. In other words, the primary role of the
advancement department is to raise charitable funds to help make the school’s mission possible.
The Brandiam School employs 24 full-time advancement staff members across five units:
major gifts, annual giving, corporate relations, donor services, and operations. The advancement
department includes 13 frontline development officers, also known as gift officers or fundraisers,
of which, two are male and eleven are female, with direct fundraising responsibilities. Eight
development officers recently left the organization over a span of three years. The school is
currently in its most ambitious fundraising campaign with its largest ever goal to raise support
for scholarships, academic priorities, faculty and research, endowments, and capital projects.
Organizational Goal
The Brandiam School’s current organizational goal is to achieve its comprehensive
fundraising campaign goal to raise $500 million by July 2022. In consultation with the
university’s senior administration and external consultants, the dean outlined a broad vision for
the school, researched the potential donor base, and launched the original campaign goal of $400
million in 2011. In 2017, the university extended its campaign for another five years, which
prompted the school’s senior administration to reevaluate its funding needs. After benchmarking
the size of endowments against peer institutions and finding that Brandiam’s endowment is less
than 25% of its target peer, the dean increased the campaign goal by an additional $100 million
to raise funds for scholarships. With $400 million already raised by February 2018, the current
organizational goal of focus for this study is to raise an additional $100 million by July 2022.
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 15

It is important to highlight the remaining $100 million goal because of the shortage of
funds raised for scholarships thus far. Although Brandiam successfully achieved its original
fundraising goal of $400 million, many of the dollars raised at Brandiam were restricted to
capital projects, including the construction of a new building for undergraduate education. More
than 25% of Brandiam’s campaign fundraising dollars was raised from 3% of the donor
population, which indicated that a small number of major gift donors were responsible for a large
portion of Brandiam’s fundraising over the last seven years. At the time, Brandiam achieved
34% of its original goal for endowed scholarships, and endowed scholarship funds accounted for
only 15% of dollars raised from 9% of the donor population. By the end of 2018, the university
confronted unforeseen challenges and donor fatigue, and the university formally concluded its
comprehensive campaign. Nevertheless, Brandiam’s senior administrators and advancement
staff were committed to addressing the need for increased scholarship funding for students and
continued to work toward achieving the school’s remaining $100 million goal. The progress will
be measured by outright cash and pledged gifts, and the results will be reported monthly.
Related Literature
Fundraising through private contributions has become an increasingly critical source of
revenue for institutions of higher education (Drezner, 2011; Gyllin, Miller, Morris, & Grover,
2015; Iarrobino, 2006; Lindahl & Conley, 2002; Mann, 2007; Stephenson & Bell, 2014).
Successful fundraising involves relationships and occurs when donors have confidence and trust
in the organization and its fundraising staff (Cluff, 2009; McDonald, Scaife, & Smyllie, 2011).
Although it is possible for one interaction between a prospective donor and the institution to
result in an immediate gift, donors typically have relationships with the institution that span
several years (Iarrobino 2006; Knowles & Gomes, 2009; Thomas, 2010) and involve long
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 16

histories of cumulative support (Sargeant & Jay, 2004). Some scholars have argued that donors
give to people and their inclination to give is highly influenced by the relationships they had
developed (Calhoun & Miller, 2004; Morrison, 2015). Therefore, the short tenure of
development officers negatively impacts an organization’s potential to efficiently raise funds
from private contributions. When a development officer leaves, the donor’s relationship with the
institution loses momentum, which reduces the donor’s inclination to give and results in a
potentially “devastating” loss in fundraising (Iarrobino, 2006, p. 143).
Despite the increased need for effective fundraising, it is still a maturing profession.
Development officers do not yet have a clear path of training and education (Croteau & Walk,
2010; Mack, Kelly, & Wilson, 2016; Strickland & Walsh, 2013), experience (Kozobarich, 2000),
or career progression (Beem, 2011). Further confronting the field of fundraising are
inconsistencies in how to define success and evaluate and incentivize performance (Collins,
2013; Kroll, 2012; Lindahl & Conley, 2002; Sauvre-Rodd, 2007). When development officers
do not have the appropriate knowledge, skills, and motivation to persist in their job, their
struggle to justify their efforts negatively influences their job satisfaction and intent to leave
(Haggerty, 2015). Ultimately, these challenges compound the costs of turnover and low
retention (Babaei & Ghafari, 2016) and hinder fundraising success at the institution.
Importance of the Evaluation
It is important to understand the organization’s ability to reach its performance goal of
raising $100 million by July 2022 for a variety of reasons. Development officers take varying
lengths of time to solicit and secure major gifts (Iarrobino, 2006; Staunch, 2011; Thomas, 2010;
Whitchurch & Comer, 2016), which are classified in educational fundraising as gifts of
significant value and are often in the six-figure range and higher (Rothenberg et al., 2014;
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 17

Staunch, 2011). Development officers typically do not produce significant results until four or
five years into their job (Thomas, 2010) and many leave their positions before reaching a
consistent productivity of success (Duronio & Tempel, 1997; Horstman, 2006; Reed, 2013).
Institutions that fail to raise sufficient funds risk having to eliminate valuable programs and
services and not being able to pursue future ambitions, recruit and retain top-quality students and
faculty, expand access and opportunity to higher education, improve infrastructure, launch
innovative programs, and extend their positive impact throughout the community. The
achievement of the performance goal will provide the administration with sufficient funding to
implement many of its plans and ambitions for the school and its students. Furthermore, with
scholarships as a renewed priority in fundraising, the inquiry on the performance and retention of
development officers is important to address. Achieving the fundraising goal is important
because financial aid can make a critical difference in recruiting, retaining, and supporting a
diverse community of students and leaders. Evaluating the organization’s performance will
enable stakeholders to gather formative data that can be used to assess the organization’s
professional development practices that impact fundraising success.
Description of Stakeholder Groups
At Brandiam, key stakeholders include donors, the administration, and development
officers. Donors contribute to the achievement of the organization’s performance goal by being
the primary source of private charitable giving to the school. In addition to the direct impact of
their gifts on the individual benefactors and on the institution (Tsao & Coll, 2005), donors
directly contribute to and benefit from the organization’s performance by the increased prestige
they provide (Cook, 1997) and the engagement, access, and opportunities they gain (Gallo,
2012). Furthermore, with alumni being the largest segment of Brandiam’s donor population, as
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 18

reported on the organization’s website, alumni benefit from the organization’s performance in
terms of its reputation and rankings against peer institutions. It is also suggested that alumni
donors benefit from the social identity of their affiliation with the institution’s brand (Sargeant,
2013; Stephenson & Bell, 2014), which is influenced in part by the organization’s performance
in fundraising. Alumni are important for the school to not only sustain its current performance
but also to grow its donor pipeline and future fundraising.
A key role of a university president is to set the vision and employ the appropriate
personnel to align with the mission (McGoey, 2007). Academic deans and senior administrators
are relied upon to effectively execute the overall university mission. The school’s administration
contributes to the organizational performance goal by formally establishing and directing the
school-specific mission, vision, and goals. Ultimately, the senior administration also drives the
culture and policies used to recruit and retain students, faculty, and staff. At Brandiam, the dean
leads the school along with a cabinet of senior administrators, including vice deans for each of
the following areas: undergraduate programs, graduate programs, online education, and faculty
and academic affairs; and associate deans for each of the following areas: advancement,
communications, and finance and administration. When it comes to fundraising, the role of
administration is to identify the current and future funding needs and priorities of the institution.
These stakeholders also have the potential to be valuable partners for development officers by
serving as resources to interact with current and prospective donors and as spokespeople to
reinforce communication about the needs and impact of charitable contributions.
The stakeholder group known as development officers has the primary responsibility of
fundraising for the institution, which is largely a relationship-driven endeavor (Beem, 2001;
Duronio & Tempel, 1997; Knowles, & Gomes, 2009; Strickland & Walsh, 2013; Waters, 2009).
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 19

Development officers identify, qualify, cultivate, solicit, and steward donors (Duronio &
Tempel, 1997; Sanders, 1997) to support the school and its programs, students, faculty, and
research. The relationship-building efforts of development officers are often responsible for
securing gifts that collectively amount to two-thirds or more of an institution’s total fundraising
(Hunt & Lee, 1993; Sauvre-Rodd, 2007). Optimizing productivity during the time that
development officers are there and increasing the tenure of the development staff can be critical
factors in effectively achieving Brandiam’s fundraising goal of $500 million by July 2022.
Organizational and Stakeholders Groups’ Performance Goals
Although performance issues or a lack of capacity to do well in this still emerging field is
often associated with a lack of retention of development officers, retention was not an explicit
problem in the organization of focus at the time of this study. At the time of data collection,
Brandiam’s team of 13 development officers had an average tenure of 5.45 years. Nevertheless,
retention is a prevalent issue for the field and can impact development officers’ performance and
their organization’s capacity to achieve their goals. Therefore, the primary focus of this study
was to explore the capacity of development officers and the influences on this stakeholder group
to perform well at their organization. Brandiam could, then, benefit from enhanced retention of
high performing development officers. Brandiam’s organizational mission, organizational global
goal, and stakeholder groups’ performance goals are presented in Table 1.
Table 1
Organizational Mission, Organizational Global Goal, Stakeholder Groups’ Performance Goals
Organizational Mission
The mission of the Brandiam School of Management, Leadership, Business, and Workplace
Excellence (Brandiam) is to educate and train leaders to be well prepared to confront critical
problems being faced in business and to improve business and society through the work of
thought leaders, today and in the future.
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 20

Organizational Global Goal
Brandiam will raise the remaining $100 million to achieve its comprehensive campaign goal to
raise $500 million by July 2022 and, ultimately, enhance capacity and retention of high
performing development officers.
Development Officers
By July 2022, development
officers, as a unit, will raise
$100 million.
Senior Administration
By January 2020, the Dean’s
Cabinet will develop a list of
at least five funding priorities.
Donors
By July 2020, donors will
have contributed $450 million
to the school’s campaign.

Stakeholder Group for the Study
While the joint efforts of all stakeholders will contribute to the organizational goal of
achieving Brandiam School’s goal of raising $500 million by July 2022 and a complete analysis
would involve all stakeholder groups, for practical purposes, this study focused on one
stakeholder group—the development officers charged with fundraising for the institution. It was
important to evaluate where development officers were in order to understand their needs with
regard to their performance goal. As of February 2018, development officers had raised $400
million (80% of the school’s revised goal), of which approximately eighty million dollars was
raised for scholarships, since the campaign began in 2011. The $400 million was achieved
primarily through raising large gifts that were restricted to major naming initiatives and capital
projects, including a new building that provided the school with several fundraising opportunities
that were of interest to several major donors. However, due to factors beyond the control of
Brandiam’s development officers, the institution decided to close its current fundraising
campaign at the end of December 2018. The university’s advancement reports indicated that
Brandiam had raised an overall average of $53 million annually for various needs across the
school, of which $10 million was raised specifically for scholarships, throughout the campaign.
The reports also indicated that Brandiam experienced a general decline in total fundraising after
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 21

the third year of the campaign, marked by a 55% decrease from its peak performance six years
ago to the current annual total of $36 million as of May 2019. Donations raised specifically for
endowed and current-use scholarship funds annually to Brandiam amounted to $3.5 million prior
to the campaign and averaged $10 million during the campaign. Despite the university recently
concluding its fundraising campaign, the Brandiam School’s senior administration emphasized
that the need for increased scholarship funds was still warranted and they chose to continue
sprinting toward the school’s goal to raise $100 million for scholarships. The stakeholder group
of development officers was then faced with the challenge of combatting donor fatigue after
years of their receiving concentrated messages about fundraising. In addition, Brandiam’s
development officers were expected to persist and sustain the organization staff’s long-term
motivation to consistently perform at high levels in order to prolong above-average levels of
giving despite the institution’s conclusion of its overall fundraising campaign.
The stakeholder goal is for development officers, as a unit, to raise $100 million by July
2022. The school leadership’s preference is to raise these funds specifically for scholarships.
This performance amounts to an average of $25 million per year over four years. This annual
performance goal is more than double the stakeholder group’s overall pre-campaign
performance, in which they raised an average of $12 million per year for a variety of needs
across the school (M. De Vecchi, personal communication, December 5, 2017). When
fundraising performance is disaggregated to look specifically at scholarship funds, the current
goal to raise an average of $25 million each year for four years represents a performance that is
greater than 700% of Brandiam’s $3.5 million pre-campaign average for scholarships and 250%
of Brandiam’s annual campaign average of raising $10 million for scholarships. The current
stakeholder goal will contribute an additional $100 million to the school’s campaign and ensure
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 22

that Brandiam achieves its organizational goal to raise $500 million by July 2022. Progress
toward the goal will be tracked by outright cash and pledged gifts secured by development
officers, and results will be reported monthly. Fundraising will include activities such as
developing portfolios of prospects, creating solicitation plans, measuring the funds raised and
gifts pledged, and conducting stewardship activities with donors. Given that institutions vary
greatly in their culture, mission, and stakeholders (Cook & Lasher, 1996), if the organization
does not retain development officers who are well informed about the institution and its
traditions, culture, and vision for the future, the organization risks not being able to efficiently
achieve its fundraising goal (Croteau & Walk, 2010; Duronio & Tempel, 1997; Horstman, 2006;
Iarrobino, 2006; Reed, 2013; Thomas, 2010). Failure to meet the fundraising goal will hinder
the administration’s ability to support existing programs and implement many of its plans and
ambitions for the school and its students.
Purpose of the Project and Questions
The purpose of this project was to conduct a needs analysis in the areas of knowledge and
skills, motivation, and organizational resources necessary to reach the stakeholder performance
goal that development officers, as a unit, will raise $100 million by July 2022. The Clark and
Estes (2008) gap analysis framework was used as the framework to achieve the study’s purpose
and understand stakeholder performance through the analysis of knowledge, motivation, and
organizational influences. The analysis began by generating a list of possible needs and moved
to examining these systematically to focus on actual needs and gaps. While a complete needs
analysis would focus on all stakeholders, for practical purposes, the stakeholders selected for this
analysis was the group of development officers at Brandiam because the performance of
development officers is integral to successfully achieving the organizational fundraising goal.
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 23

As such, the following questions guided this needs analysis that addresses the knowledge and
skills, motivation, and organizational resources for development officers in higher education:
1. What are development officers’ knowledge and motivation related to raising $100
million, as a unit, by July 2022?
2. What is the interaction between Brandiam School’s organizational culture and context
and development officers’ knowledge and motivation related to raising $100 million by
July 2022 and, ultimately, for the organization to enhance capacity and retention of high
performing development officers?
3. What are the recommendations for practice?
Methodological Approach
Given the lack of consensus in the field about developing, evaluating, and retaining
effective development officers in higher education, this study aimed to deliver a rich description
of the needs of development officers through data collection in a natural setting. In this study,
my research questions were descriptive and aimed to explore the knowledge, motivation, and
organizational influences on the performance and retention of development officers in higher
education. Descriptive research questions can be answered by either a quantitative or qualitative
methodological approach (Samkian, n.d.-a). The purpose of a quantitative inquiry is to study
relationships and often uses a large sample (Creswell, 2014; Samkian, n.d.-a), whereas
qualitative research questions are descriptive, meaning focused, and process oriented (Samkian,
n.d.-a). Qualitative research tends to be exploratory in its approach and the findings may be used
to generate a theory that is context specific (Samkian, n.d.-a). Qualitative researchers present
rich descriptions of what is happening, seek to explain and construct meaning, examine the
process of how something works, and collect data in a naturalistic setting (McEwan & McEwan,
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 24

2003; Samkian, n.d.-a). For these reasons, a qualitative inquiry process was utilized for this
study to describe, evaluate, and further understand what was happening in the organization that
impacted development officers’ performance at Brandiam.
In qualitative research, the inquiry design is considered to be a case study if it is bounded
by time and activity (Samkian, n.d.), the unit of analysis is defined and specific (Merriam &
Tisdell, 2016), and data is collected over time (Creswell, 2014). My research design was a
phenomenological case study, wherein the study was bounded by one particular population of
development officers in higher education and their perspectives and experiences were studied in
the specific setting of the Brandiam School. A phenomenological study seeks to describe the
“essence” of an experience and understand how participants interact with and interpret their
environment (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016, p. 26). Phenomenological strategies for qualitative
analysis draw upon personal experience and make comparisons from the data (Corbin & Strauss,
2008). Qualitative inquiry primarily uses an inductive approach and generates themes that
emerge from data collected through face-to-face interactions with participants or artifacts and
purposeful sampling, oftentimes with a small number of participants or sites (Creswell, 2014;
Samkian, n.d.-a). Data collection in qualitative research includes methods such as interviews,
observations, and document analyses (Creswell, 2014; Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). For this study,
I recruited development officers from my organization, the Brandiam School, in order to explore
in depth the individual and shared experiences of the stakeholder group of focus.
Organization of the Project
This study was organized into five chapters. Chapter One provided the reader with the
key concepts and terminology commonly found in a discussion about fundraising by
development officers in higher education. The chapter also included the organization’s mission,
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 25

goals, and stakeholders as well as the evaluation framework. Chapter Two provides a review of
current literature surrounding the scope of study. Key topics of fundraising as a still emerging
field, the time factor in fundraising, job dissatisfaction and inconsistent definitions of success,
and considerations for tackling the retention problem of development officers are addressed.
Chapter Three details the knowledge, motivation, and organizational elements to be examined in
relation to development officers and the methodology for the selection criteria of participants,
data collection, and analysis. Chapter Four describes and analyzes the data and presents the
results and findings. Chapter Five provides recommendations for practice, based on data and
literature, as well as recommendations for an implementation plan for the solutions.
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 26

Chapter Two: Review of the Literature
Traditional sources of funding for education have declined and institutions of higher
education depend on development officers to raise alternative sources of funding to sustain their
operations. For fiscal year 2018, U.S. colleges and universities raised approximately $46.73
billion (Council for Advancement and Support of Education, 2019). This total represented a
7.2% increase over the prior fiscal year when the top 20 fundraising institutions, representing
less than 1% of the colleges and universities in the U.S., accounted for 28.1% of the total $43.6
billion raised by institutions of higher education in the U.S. (Council for Aid to Education,
2018). Individual donors continued to be the primary constituency of philanthropic giving. At
44.3% in 2018 (Council for Aid to Education, 2018) and 44.1% in 2017 (Seltzer, 2018),
individual donors contributed the largest portion of total dollars raised for higher education.
Selective institutions have enrolled a high concentration of financially advantaged students
(Hillman, 2013). In addition, elite institutions have attracted more gift revenue than less
selective institutions (Cheslock & Gianneschi, 2008). The trend continued as six of the seven
institutions that received single gifts of $100 million or more in 2018 were also in the list of top
20 fundraising institutions for the year (Council for Advancement and Support of Education,
2019). The subsequent disparity has widened as more donations go to a small number of
institutions, further sustaining the concentration of wealth and fundraising success amongst elite
institutions. Nonetheless, a relatively small pool of development officers, who are responsible
for raising a large proportion of major gifts from individual donors, exists and makes a major
impact on higher education (Nagaraj, Barnes, Chaman, & Rothenberg, 2015). Although turnover
of development officers remains high (Iarrobino, 2006; Szymanowski, 2013), the high demand
for qualified development officers continues to exceed the supply (Lanning, 2007; Nathan &
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 27

Tempel, 2017; Oliver, 2007; Rothenberg et al., 2014). With a turnover cost of 117% as a
percentage of salary, an institution suffers an estimated $127,650 to find a replacement for a
departed development officer plus opportunity losses of more than $1 million in gifts not raised
during a typical six-month-long vacancy and six-month-long onboarding period of that position
(Rothenberg et al., 2014). Generally, an institution suffers much more than the cost of a base
salary when it loses a highly effective development officer.
Although the literature focuses on a range of issues impacting the fundraising profession
in a variety of contexts, this review is primarily concerned with the needs of development
officers to be effective in their fundraising efforts and to remain with their organizations. In this
chapter, the review begins with general research on factors that influence development officers’
performance and tenure in higher education. Following the general research literature, the
chapter turns to the Clark and Estes (2008) gap analysis conceptual framework, which was used
in this study to examine the knowledge and skills, motivation, and organizational influences that
facilitated or impeded the performance of development officers in the Brandiam School.
Influences on Development Officers’ Performance and Tenure in Higher Education
Culled from the general literature about the larger problem of the increased need for
effective fundraising, this literature review provides a brief overview of factors, variables, and
causes that influence the fundraising problem in higher education. The review of literature
includes a brief description of the growth of the field (Horstman, 2006; Iarrobino, 2006; Jaquette
& Curs, 2015; Nagaraj et al., 2015; Shaker & Nathan, 2017; Worth & Asp, 1994) and continues
with the time pressure in fundraising (Cluff, 2009; Croteau & Wolk, 2010; Iarrobino, 2006;
Schwinn & Sommerfield, 2002; Staunch, 2011; Sykora, 2005; Thomas, 2010) and a description
of fundraising as an emerging field (Edgington, 2013; Grabau, 2010; Horstman, 2006; Shaker &
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 28

Nathan, 2017; WealthEngine 2013; Wilson, 2015). These factors impact the performance of
development officers and manifest as challenges specifically for those in higher education
because of the variations in training, performance assessments, and research available for
development officers to pursue and persist in the field. The emerging field also brings with it
several factors that contribute to the revolving door that plagues the field and their organizations
(Bell & Cornelius, 2013; Duronio & Temple, 1997; Edgington, 2013; Haggerty, 2015;
Horstman, 2006; Nathan & Tempel, 2017; Reed, 2013; Rothenberg et al., 2014; Thomas, 2010).
The review ends with suggested interventions (Nagaraj et al., 2015; Pollitt, 2011; Rothenberg et
al., 2014; Smith, 2010; Strickland & Walsh, 2013) that emerged from the literature to potentially
help development officers be more effective and stay with their organizations.
Growth and Evolution of Fundraising in Higher Education Institutions
Historically, institutions of higher education largely depended on funds from tuition and
state appropriations (Jaquette & Curs, 2015; Nagaraj et al., 2015). However, a variety of factors
has compelled institutions to expand the sources of, efforts, and roles involved with fundraising.
One of the earliest recorded accounts of fundraising for higher education was a gift from John
Harvard, whose bequest in 1638 formally established Harvard College (Edgington, 2013; Kotti,
2008; Shaker & Nathan, 2017). Until a shift began in the early 1900s when fundraising methods
became more formal and deliberate, fundraising in the 19th century was transactional,
disorganized, and often centered on religion (Shaker & Nathan, 2017; Worth & Asp, 1994).
In the early 20th century, the concept of a fundraising campaign and related practices
were applied to higher education, and formal development officer roles began to appear (Shaker
& Nathan, 2017; Worth & Asp, 1994). The field of fundraising was further impacted by the
growth of nonprofits and fundraising classes beginning in the late 1900s (Horstman, 2006;
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 29

Shaker & Nathan, 2017). Community colleges entered the competition for resources and began
to spend more attention on fundraising, as many universities and colleges had already been doing
for several years (Gyllin et al., 2005). The 1990s saw a surge of people in fundraising jobs
(Horstman, 2006). Even though higher education faced reductions in government appropriations
(Jaquette & Curs, 2015; Nagaraj et al., 2015; U.S. Department of Education, 2016d; U.S.
Department of Education, 2016d) and tuition comprised only a portion of an institution’s
operating budget, organizations were slow to dedicate resources to employ development officers
(Iarrobino, 2006; Sandberg, 1980). Despite the growth in the field, development officers had
been leaving their jobs at alarming rates (Croteau & Wolk, 2010; Horstman, 2006; Oliver, 2007;
Thomas, 2010; Worth & Asp, 1994). Nearly half of development officers left because of the
lack of career advancement opportunities and compensation, and the majority had tenures of less
than five years (Thomas, 1996). Today, the role of a development officer is still evolving and
retention continues to challenge the field (Iarrobino, 2006; Shaker & Nathan, 2017).
The rapid growth of large fundraising campaigns has placed greater attention on major
gifts, which are donations of a significant size, and on development officers who raise major
gifts. A 2016 Council for Education study pointed out that 30% of an educational institution’s
charitable donations came from an average of 12 gifts (Segedin, 2017). In fiscal year 2018, U.S.
higher education institutions collectively raised a record total $46.73 billion (Council for
Advancement and Support of Education, 2019), an increase over the previous year’s $43.6
billion (Council for Aid to Education, 2018). Although higher education experienced growth in
total fundraising, much of the giving was concentrated with elite institutions. Twenty
institutions, which accounted for less than 1% of all institutions of higher education in the U.S.,
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 30

raised 28.1% of the total funds in 2017, an increase from the 27% portion of the previous year
(Council for Aid to Education, 2018).
The need for fundraising has prompted growth in the number of new jobs and expanded
the expectations of development officers and higher education administrators. Although the
responsibility to fundraise for the institution primarily lies with development officers,
fundraising is an obligation that has expanded across the institution to administrators, staff, and
volunteers, all of whom can benefit from and contribute to achieving fundraising goals.
However, time and training are limited, and resources are stretched thin. The chief development
officer is now expected to assume both the fundraising and strategist functions and can no longer
focus only on the solitary function of securing gifts from donors (Perez, 2012). Advancement
departments may ask presidents to spend up to half of their time on fundraising, however, this
level of time commitment is rarely put into practice (Crawford, 2013). Nevertheless, there is
much potential for people outside of the advancement department, such as trustees,
administrators, faculty, staff, athletics, student affairs, and volunteers, to better understand the
needs of development, to partner with advancement offices, to be major contributors to
fundraising outcomes, and to directly impact a specific program or the overall institution
(McCarthy, 2017; Sandberg, 1980; Sturgis, 2006). A solicitation strategy may incorporate
valuable input from multiple people, and still it may take several years for a development officer
or team to develop a proposal before it is presented to a prospective donor (Crawford, 2013).
Relationships and time have become critical factors in the evolution of the fundraising practice.
The Pressures of Time and Relationship Building in Fundraising
Fundraising is a relationship-driven field that involves people. As noted in the common
adage that “donors don’t give to causes; they give to people with causes,” successful fundraising
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 31

revolves around relationships with people (Nicoson, 2010, p. 73). However, the fundraising
activities and outcomes of development officers at one organization will not necessarily be
effective at another organization (Cook & Lasher, 1996). Development officers invest several
months or years to sufficiently grasp the institution-specific practices and culture that are
required for them to develop strong relationships with donors. These relationships lead to
securing philanthropic gifts for the organization. However, time is a constant tension for the
field. The fundraising field suffers from disproportionately low retention and high turnover of
development officers for a variety of reasons. With fundraising being context specific, the
impact on an institution is exacerbated by a low retention of effective development officers.
A newly hired development officer often takes six months to learn about the organization
and start developing relationships with prospective donors (Schwinn & Sommerfield, 2002).
Development officers engage in extensive cycles of creating cultivation plans, executing the
plans, qualifying and cultivating prospects, and closing gifts (Crawford, 2013; Nicoson, 2010).
Cultivation strategies for major gifts differ from annual giving and tend to involve longer-term
conversations and relationship building with donors (Waters, 2011). Although a development
officer can secure a major gift within six months (Cluff, 2009), an average solicitation cycle to
develop a proposal for a major gift is 18 months (Cluff, 2009; Staunch, 2011; Sykora, 2005), and
cultivating a donor to commit to making a major gift may take several years (Iarrobino, 2006).
However, a major gift officer typically does not reach a consistent level of productivity in
securing gifts until four or five years into the job (Thomas, 2010).
Timely relationships between donors and development officer are vital for efficient and
effective fundraising. Development officers and other staff members who engage donors in
volunteering for the institution tend to give more time and donation (Gyllin et al., 2005). Higher
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 32

donations resulted from donors who were asked to give time before being asked for money
compared to those who were first asked for money (Liu & Aaker, 2008). Alumni are the largest
single source of philanthropic giving in higher education (Lindahl & Conley, 2002). Giving
from this constituency to their alma mater is influenced by a number of factors. Donations from
alumni tend to be based on the perceived need for additional support and what they believe their
gift will help to achieve; and maintaining or increasing the percentage of alumni who give
requires the institution to establish relationships with alumni (Weerts & Ronca, 2009). Donors
who give more than once to an institution have a stronger relationship with an organization than
donors who have given once (Waters, 2008). These factors point to the importance of retaining
donors, keeping them engaged over time, and maintaining consistent relationships with donors,
all of which are standard job functions of development officers.
An institution may not see a return on investment of its hiring and training of a
development officer for three or more years (Thomas, 2010). A multimillion-dollar gift may
take several years to close (Croteau & Wolk, 2010; Iarrobino, 2006). When a development
officer leaves, the momentum with a prospective donor is impacted by the loss (Horstman, 2006;
Iarrobino, 2006). Although the performance of a development officer varies greatly and there is
no consensus on predicting how much money each development officer may raise, Kroll’s
(2012) analysis estimated that a development officer annually raises $471,000 to $1.6 million
from the middle 50% of development officers studied. Moreover, every development officer’s
departure can have a dangerous indirect cost. Donors may see staff departures as a signal of their
lack of commitment to and belief in the institution (Sanders, 1997).
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 33

Fundraising as an Emerging Field
Fundraising is a still maturing field and faces many challenges. There is not yet a defined
academic path for fundraising education and training (Shaker & Nathan, 2017). Also, consensus
around the metrics and definitions of success in fundraising activity has not been reached
(Grabau, 2010; WealthEngine 2013; Wilson, 2015). Furthermore, there is a dearth of empirical
research on the experiences of development officers (Edgington, 2013; Horstman, 2006). These
factors influence the preparation, training, and performance of development officers.
Challenges of training and professional development in fundraising. Development
officers typically do not follow a conventional career path leading up to or throughout their work
in fundraising. Many have learned on the job and through professional networks, such as the
Council for Advancement and Support of Education (Shaker & Nathan, 2017; Warren, Hoyler, &
Bell, 2016). The occupation does not consistently require a specific set of concrete skills, formal
training, professional development, and certifications (Bloland & Tempel, 2004; Caboni, 2012;
Strickland & Walsh, 2013). Successful fundraising does require development officers to have a
complex and varied set of skills, from interpersonal to strategic skills (Worth, 2002).
Development officers who have been improperly trained or have less than three years of
experience may jeopardize their institution or relationships with donors (Caboni, 2012; Knowles
& Gomes, 2009). With the talent shortage that is prevalent in the still growing field of
educational fundraising (Croteau & Wolk, 2012; Smith, 2010), organizations have positions that
may be left open for a long time or filled by inexperienced development officers or left open.
Challenges of assessing the effectiveness of development officers. There are various
challenges in evaluating performance and defining success in the emerging field of fundraising.
Development officers can potentially be held accountable to a wide variety of metrics, and the
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 34

measures differ at each institution (Nagaraj et al., 2015). Often, performance metrics are not
established strategically and, instead, are set reactively (Nagaraj et al., 2015). For example, 125-
150 has become a common target given to development officers for the size of their portfolios of
donors; and it is believed that this number was largely based on anthropological research about
the human brain’s ability to handle approximately 150 social relationships (Nagaraj et al., 2015).
Although widely used in practice across the industry, many institutions are finding development
officers unable to meet this expectation and needing to strategically revamp their metrics
(Grabau, 2010; Nagaraj et al., 2015).
There is a diverse range of recommendations for ways to measure the performance of
development officers. Some of the many quantifiable measures considered were the amount of
time that development officers spend in the cultivation phase of fundraising (Grabau, 2010), their
yield rate (Grabau, 2010), return on investment (WealthEngine, 2013), number of upgraded
donors, and number of new and renewed donors, and the alumni participation rate (Wilson,
2015). Some of the qualitative factors suggested for advancement offices were to measure the
meaningful activity of development officers (Grabau, 2010) or the number of proactive contacts
and the quality of solicitations (Wilson, 2015). However, subjective terms, e.g., proactive,
quality, and meaningful, would need to be clearly defined. Furthermore, there are a number of
factors to consider when selecting a set of measurements to use as performance standards and
defining how to calculate them. For example, Kroll (2012) noted the lack of consensus across
institutions about which specific expenditures should be included in the calculation of return on
investment on fundraising activity. Collins (2013) recommended calculating return on
investment along with specified performance, which could include the number of personal visits,
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 35

assists, or shared credit, and the quantity and total financial number of gifts closed, whereas
Hiles (2010) recommended measuring fundraiser activity and incorporating a target closure rate.
Lack of current research on training higher education development officers. There
is a dearth of current empirical research on the knowledge, skills, qualities, and characteristics of
highly effective development officers in higher education. Moreover, there are gaps in the
research about performance management and retention in the sector of higher education (Jo,
2008). Thirty years ago, Panas (1988) published his work on the ten characteristics of an ideal
fundraiser. Since then, much of the commentary on this topic has been generated by consultants
and practitioners (Worth & Asp, 1994). The research on development officers is limited
(Horstman, 2006) and there is still not a wide base of knowledge that explores fundraising as a
profession in higher education (Edgington, 2013). Although, with the 2012 establishment of the
Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, the world’s first school “dedicated to increasing
understanding and improving the practice of philanthropy” (Indiana University, 2013), and rise
in multimillion- and billion-dollar fundraising campaigns in higher education, attention on the
field has grown in the past decade, and more research is needed.
One area for potential research to explore is in early-stage development officers.
Depending on the level of fundraising responsibility, the average tenure of development officers
is typically reported as less than five years (Horstman, 2006; Reed, 2013; Rothenberg et al.,
2014; Thomas, 2010), and those with less than 10 years of experience in fundraising have a
lower average length of tenure than those with more experience (Duronio & Temple, 1997;
Nathan & Tempel, 2017; Rothenberg et al., 2014). Based on a convenience sample of 1,826
survey participants, Nathan and Tempel (2017) found that turnover was more common for those
with early careers in the field. Specifically, development officers with less than 10 years of
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 36

fundraising experience had an average tenure of two years. This contrasted the tenure of roughly
five years for development officers with 10 or more years of experience. Others reported a
median tenure of approximately 24 months for development officers in higher education
(Rothenberg et al., 2014; Thomas, 2010), with development officers under 30 years old having
an average tenure of 16 months (Rothenberg et al., 2014). Despite the growth of the field, there
are gaps in the literature on exploring the influences and experiences of development officers in
higher education.
Complicating Organizational Factors in the Turnover Problem of Development Officers
Development officers leave their jobs for a variety of reasons. Job satisfaction predicts
turnover (Griffeth, Hom, & Gaertner, 2000). Employees leave their jobs when it is easy to leave
and there is a lack of commitment and low job satisfaction (Boles, Dudley, Onyemah, Rouziès,
& Weeks, 2012). Similarly, in Oliver’s (2007) study of advancement staff, development officers
cited several reasons for their intent to leave, including pay and professional growth, that were
considered avoidable and within the locus of control of managers, putting the onus on
organizational factors. Managers have a major role in the effectiveness and retention of a
development officer at an institution (Edgington, 2013; Oliver, 2007). Dissatisfaction with the
supervisor was found to be the most significant factor that led to staff turnover of women
administrators in higher education, and the second factor was limited advancement opportunities
(Jo, 2008). Half of the employees who leave do so because of their manager, according to a
Gallup study of 7,272 U.S. adults (Coleman, 2017).
For the past twenty years, turnover has been identified as a major challenge in
fundraising (Bell & Cornelius, 2013; Duronio & Tempel, 1997; Edgington, 2013; Haggerty,
2015; Horstman, 2006). Development officers across industries identified the inadequate
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 37

opportunities for training and high levels of stress as influences of turnover intentions (Haggerty,
2015). More specifically, the turnover rate of development officers is one of the highest amongst
administrative roles in higher education (Horstman, 2006; Thomas, 1996). Moreover,
development officers with less than five years of experience have the highest rate of turnover in
fundraising in higher education (Edgington, 2013). Some development officers seek to build a
successful career at one institution, whereas others use their position as a “stepping stone” for
further career advancement (Croteau & Wolk, 2012, p. 59). Some of the commonly cited factors
that influence development officers’ intent to leave or stay are the supply and demand of
fundraising positions in the industry (Lanning, 2007), career advancement (Lanning, 2007;
Oliver, 2007), and commitment to the organization’s mission (Lanning, 2007; Oliver, 2007).
The strength and continuity of an organization’s relationship with a donor are factors that
commonly influence whether it will lead to major gifts (Oliver, 2007). The turnover costs of
development officers are particularly high for institutions of higher education.
Potential Interventions to Improve Performance and Retain Development Officers
Recruitment and retention are challenges for the still emerging field of fundraising, and
the literature review revealed potential long- and short-term interventions. On one end of the
career spectrum, people who are interested in fundraising as a profession may not perceive
fundraising as a viable career path and, thus, they may not consider entering the field. The
University of Michigan’s internship program was an intervention that improved recruitment
(Strickland & Walsh, 2013). The program helped to shift the campus culture toward
philanthropy, increased the pipeline of future development officers, and increased the awareness
of students and alumni about the need for fundraising. One long-term option is to develop an
internship program like the University of Michigan. Another potential intervention is to create
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 38

formal academic curriculum to educate more people about philanthropy, which Indiana
University, Columbia University, and New York University have already begun to do
(Rothenberg et al., 2014). However, it may be challenging to recruit and fill enough spaces in
these types of formal programs (Smith, 2010). Instead, a short-term option is to recruit, hire, and
train people with transferable skills in sales, marketing, and customer service (Smith, 2010).
Advancement leaders may consider efforts to increase performance and job satisfaction
and, thus, retention of development officers. On the other end of the career timeline, employees
who have positive experiences on the job and have high levels of job satisfaction are more likely
to stay (Oliver, 2007). Development officers generally prefer to have knowledge of their
performance and a scorecard to gauge their success (Nagaraj et al., 2015). This finding
suggested that organizations explore ways to improve the structure, processes, and organizational
context for development officers to succeed. Organizations can tailor goals to their individual
development officers and development teams by considering a number of factors, including the
characteristics of the development officer, each development officer’s portfolio of prospects, the
advancement department, and the institution (Nagaraj et al., 2015). Organizations can offer
convenient training sessions for development officers. For example, a training that covered key
skills (e.g., getting appointments, listening, asking, and storytelling), time choices, mindset, and
taking responsibility were shown to be effective with development officers who then secured
more meetings, solicited more prospects, and increased gifts compared to six months before the
training (Pollitt, 2011). Other suggestions were to have frequent performance check-ins between
development officers and their supervisors (Nagaraj et al., 2015). This would increase
accountability and serve as formative assessments to provide opportunities for development
officers to make adjustments throughout the year. High performing development officers are
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 39

most likely to expect metrics to be considered in performance appraisals (Nagaraj et al., 2015).
They will leave their organization if there is not a clear opportunity to be on a professional career
path (Oliver, 2007; Thomas, 1996). Career pathing and succession planning were suggested as
ways to develop and retain more development officers (Croteau & Wolk, 2010).
Organizations should be proactive about anticipating and supporting development
officers’ needs. Organizations may want to take several internal actions to combat turnover,
such as benchmarking internal peers about compensation, offering market-competitive salaries,
rewarding with bonuses, offering praise, promoting within, encouraging effective
communication such as talking in person rather than using email, and offering flexibility to
development officers (Iarrobino, 2006). Recognition by leaders, not necessarily monetary
rewards, was found to be important specifically to development officers who achieve or surpass
their performance goals (Nagaraj et al., 2015).
The Clark and Estes (2008) Gap Analysis Conceptual Framework
The Clark and Estes (2008) gap analysis framework is a systematic problem-solving
approach that can be used to improve performance. The model draws on both individual and
organizational factors that affect performance (Rueda, 2011). The process of gap analysis begins
with framing a problem as clearly defined performance goals. The next step involves assessing
the current levels of achievement, which are then compared to the desired goals to identify the
gaps in performance. The framework then employs a multidimensional evaluation of the root
causes of the performance gaps. In order to determine and implement the appropriate solutions
needed to close the gaps, the assumed causes of performance gaps are identified and then
validated along the dimensions of knowledge and skills, motivation, and organizational
influences on performance. Finally, the problem-solving process includes measuring the results
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 40

or outcomes of the applied solution, and this may suggest the need to further refine the goals and
repeat the cycle of evaluation and analysis.
The gap analysis framework focuses on the major causes of performance gaps in three
areas: knowledge and skills, motivation, and organizational factors (Clark & Estes, 2008). These
dimensions were evaluated and are described below. The gap analytic process has been adopted
for a needs analysis in this study. It was used to understand the current capacity of development
officers in order to make recommendations to improve their and, ultimately, the organization’s
capacity. The knowledge and skills dimension of the framework highlights the factual,
conceptual, procedural, and metacognitive types of knowledge that stakeholders need in order to
know what and how to achieve their performance goals (Krathwohl, 2002; Rueda, 2011). The
motivation related indices of active choice, persistence, and mental effort are essential
components of performance (Clark & Estes, 2008). The framework’s motivation dimension
takes into consideration individuals’ beliefs in the value of the task, their self-efficacy, and their
confidence in achieving the goal (Clark & Estes, 2008; Rueda, 2011). The organizational
dimension of the framework consists of evaluating the culture, context, resources, policies,
procedures, processes, and other structural aspects of the organization that hinder the
achievement of performance goals (Clark & Estes, 2008). Overall, the gap analysis framework
guided the clarification of performance goals, helped diagnose the causes of performance gaps,
and suggested solutions that are in alignment with the validated root causes of the problem in
order to improve performance issues. The next section addresses the application of the Clark and
Estes (2008) gap analysis framework to this study and describes the key knowledge, motivation,
and organizational influences on the performance of development officers and the goal of raising
$100 million by July 2022.
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 41

Development Officers’ Knowledge, Motivation, and Organizational Influences
The review of literature on fundraising in higher education identified knowledge and
skills (Calhoun & Miller, 2004; Goettler, 1998; Kozobarich, 2000; McCarthy, 2017; Nicoson,
2010; Oliver, 2007; Pollitt, 2011; Sandberg, 1980; Smith, 2010; Staunch, 2011; Worth, 2002),
motivation (Croteau, 2009; Croteau & Wolk, 2010; Iarrobino, 2006; Jo, 2008; Kaye & Jordan-
Evans, 2005; Shute, 2008; Thomas, 2010; Worth, 2002), and organizational influences (Bell &
Cornelius, 2013; Edgington, 2013; Haggerty, 2015; Knowles & Gomes, 2009; Kozobarich, 2000;
Mann, 2007; Proper, Caboni, Hartley, & Willmer, 2009) that affect development officers in their
performance. The first section of this literature review highlights the influences of knowledge
and skills on development officers and their fundraising activities. The second section describes
motivation influences on the performance of development officers at institutions of higher
education. The third section follows with the organizational influences that affect fundraising
performance in higher education.
Knowledge and Skills Influences
Development officers in higher education raise funds to support and advance the mission
of the institution. The timely achievement of the fundraising goal depends on development
officers having the necessary knowledge and skills to perform. It is important to consider
knowledge influences of development officers because of the many negative consequences that
result from poor performance, including short tenures and related organizational losses of
productivity, losses in the momentum of donor relationships with the institution, and losses of
fundraising gifts to the institution (Duronio & Tempel, 1997; Oliver, 2007; Sandberg, 1980).
This literature review focuses on knowledge-related influences that are pertinent to the
achievement of development officers as a unit to collectively raise $100 million by July 2022. It
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 42

is important to examine knowledge and skills in problem solving in order to help diagnose the
root cause of the problem, promote learning, and generate appropriate implementation strategies
to improve performance (Clark & Estes, 2008). Success in fundraising involves development
officers having the metacognitive knowledge necessary for self-assessment and willingness to
learn and adapt their behavior as needed (Smith, 2010). Learning involves a change in cognition
or behavior, and is reciprocal to motivation, both of which are important for achievement
(Alexander, Schallert, & Reynolds, 2009; Mayer, 2011; Pintrich, 2003). According to social
cognitive theory, learning occurs through observation (Denler, Wolters & Benzon, 2006) and the
use of self-regulated processes, such as goal setting and self-evaluation, promotes learning and
achievement (Dembo & Eaton, 2000; Denler, Wolters, & Benzon, 2006; Mayer, 2011).
Moreover, self-evaluation is considered a critical step in analyzing gaps between goals and actual
performance (Clark & Estes, 2008). The Clark and Estes gap analysis model provides a
problem-solving approach for identifying and closing gaps of knowledge and skills, motivation,
and organizational factors that may be impeding stakeholders from achieving their performance
goals (Clark & Estes, 2008; Rueda, 2011).
Knowledge influences on performance. In order to achieve successful performance
outcomes, individuals need to have four types of knowledge: factual, conceptual, procedural, and
metacognitive (Krathwohl, 2002; Rueda, 2011). The first and simplest type of knowledge
influence is factual knowledge, including the concrete and basic content elements, major facts,
and terminology of a subject matter (Krathwohl, 2002; Schraw & McCrudden, 2006). Factual
knowledge generally is quickly retrieved from memory (Krathwohl, 2002; Schraw &
McCrudden, 2006). The second knowledge type is conceptual knowledge and entails the more
complex skill of knowing the difference between various facts or the implications of a theory
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 43

(Krathwohl, 2002). Conceptual knowledge describes information that is more complex than the
discrete elements of factual knowledge and, instead, involves constructing meaning from new
information and making comparisons and connections with prior knowledge (Krathwohl, 2002).
Information processing theory states that the mental organization of this knowledge occurs
quickly in working memory (Schraw & McCrudden, 2006). The efficiency of this process and
the amount of mental effort needed to perform a task are largely influenced by the cognitive load
that is being placed on learning (Mayer, 2011; Schraw & McCrudden, 2006). The third type of
knowledge is procedural knowledge, including the comprehensive steps of knowing a process or
procedure, knowing when to decide to apply that knowledge, and knowing how to perform the
task (Krathwohl, 2002). The fourth and most abstract type of knowledge influence is
metacognitive knowledge, including the knowledge of cognition and self (Krathwohl, 2002).
Examples of metacognitive knowledge may include self-evaluation, reflection, strategizing,
planning, assessment, and adaptation (Krathwohl, 2002).
Each of these four knowledge dimensions provides different information about the
knowledge that development officers need to have in order to achieve their fundraising goal.
Gaps in any of these areas of knowledge hinder the performance of development officers.
Therefore, it is important to evaluate key knowledge influences to inform the selection,
implementation, and assessment of interventions intended to address these performance gaps.
The following section highlights two important knowledge influences and categorizes them into
the knowledge types of procedural knowledge and metacognitive knowledge.
Development officers’ ability to implement the phases of a fundraising cycle.
Development officers often achieve fundraising success by working through a procedural series
of steps. While there are several variations of the fundraising cycle, also known as the gift cycle,
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 44

donor cultivation cycle, and moves management, the cycle’s phases generally revolve around the
steps of identification, qualification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship (Goettler, 1998;
Kozobarich, 2000; McCarthy, 2017; Nicoson, 2010; Sandberg, 1980; Staunch, 2011).
Development officers typically engage in this cyclical process with actions that take place prior
to direct interactions with prospective donors and continue even after securing a charitable gift
from a donor (Sandberg, 1980; Staunch, 2011).
Fundraising success is largely driven by strong relationships, and some scholars have
argued that donors are highly influenced to make charitable gifts due to the relationships they
had developed with development officers (Calhoun & Miller, 2004; Morrison, 2015; Oliver,
2007; Perez, 2012; Waters, 2008). Among their description of the procedural steps that
development officers take in their fundraising efforts, Calhoun and Miller (2004) posited that
“people give to people” (p. 13). This sentiment was echoed by Morrison’s (2015) findings about
the influence that development officers have on a donor’s inclination of how and where to give.
The length of completing a fundraising cycle varies greatly depending on the individuals
involved. It is common for a development officer to take 18 months or more to secure a major
gift (Oliver, 2007). Despite intentional movement through the solicitation cycle, fundraising is
still seen as an art because of the relationship driven nature of the job, as demonstrated in the
research conducted on the evolving role of fundraisers at the highest levels—chief development
officers (Perez, 2012). Trust, satisfaction, and commitment were among the top factors found to
correlate with a donor making multiple gifts over time (Waters, 2008). It is important for
development officers to understand how to operate in each phase of the fundraising cycle in
order to effectively and efficiently manage their relationships, time, and experiences with donors.
Otherwise, lack of these aspects of knowledge will negatively impact performance.
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 45

Development officers’ ability to reflect on their strengths and challenges with
fundraising performance. When conducting a gap analysis, a researcher must not assume that
stakeholders have the applicable knowledge and skills needed to appropriately diagnose, collect
and analyze data, and resolve a performance problem (Clark & Estes, 2008). In the context of
this study, if development officers do not know how to assess their strengths and challenges with
achieving a goal, then the knowledge dimension of metacognition is a potential cause of gaps in
performance. Successful fundraising requires development officers to think strategically, have
the ability to effectively manage multiple relationships, and be able to juggle a portfolio of
donors, who are each in various stages of the fundraising cycle (Goettler, 1998; Nicoson, 2010;
Worth, 2002).
Reflection and self-regulation are critical factors for evaluating one’s performance
(Baker, 2006; Harrison, 2013; Krathwohl, 2002). In a study that assessed the positive impact of
a training course on fundraising, the metacognitive influences of mindset and taking
responsibility were highlighted as key skills that resulted in increased performance by
development officers after the training (Pollitt, 2011). When development officers lack the
metacognitive knowledge to evaluate their own effectiveness in fundraising, however, then they
are not well prepared to set appropriate goals and do not know when to engage in professional
development, training, or education to improve in their areas of weakness. The metacognitive
knowledge influence was also emphasized with Smith’s (2010) suggestion that development
officers need to be able to identify their own weaknesses, make mistakes, adjust, and improve.
This demonstration of metacognitive knowledge is an example of how development officers can
incorporate Dweck’s (2006) growth mindset and the belief that they can change, grow, and learn
in order to improve their performance and enhance their efforts to achieve their goals.
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 46

Table 2 highlights two types of assumed knowledge influences identified in the literature
and those being focused on in this study as influences for development officers to meet their goal
to raise $100 million by July 2022.
Table 2
Development Officers’ Knowledge Influences
Assumed Knowledge Influences Knowledge Influence Assessments
Procedural:
Development officers need to know how
to operate through the phases of the
fundraising cycle, which is also known as
the development cycle, gift cycle, donor
cycle, and solicitation cycle.
Use interviews to ask development officers
to articulate the phases (e.g., identification,
qualification, cultivation, solicitation, and
stewardship) and the typical activities and
behaviors related to each phase of the
fundraising cycle.
Metacognitive:
Development officers need to have
knowledge of how to evaluate their own
strengths and challenges with fundraising
in order to identify their potential areas of
improvement and to more efficiently
achieve their performance goals.
Use interviews to ask development officers
to reflect on what they do and how they
self-evaluate their strengths and challenges
with fundraising.

Motivation Influences
Motivation plays a critical role in learning and behavior. Choice, persistence, and effort
are indicators of motivation (Rueda, 2011). Motivation can either facilitate or inhibit a person’s
decision to choose to actively engage in a task, persist at the activity in the face of distractions,
and put forth a sufficient level of mental effort into learning and performing the task (Clark &
Estes, 2008; Rueda, 2011). Motivation can be influenced by goals (Eccles, 2006; Rueda, 2011),
values that individuals place on their tasks (Eccles, 2006), and perceptions about their own self-
efficacy (Bandura, 1977). The analysis of motivational indices and how people respond to
challenges can help to diagnose motivational barriers or challenges and be useful areas to explore
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 47

when conducting a gap analysis and (Clark & Estes, 2008). This literature review focuses on
motivation-related influences that are pertinent to the achievement of the stakeholder goal, which
is that development officers, as a unit, will collectively raise $100 million by July 2022. The
theories on values and self-efficacy will be discussed and applied to the context of motivational
barriers of development officers to achieving their performance goals in fundraising.
Value orientation as a motivation influence on performance. Individuals need to
value a task if they are going to engage in, persist, and put forth effort into that task to achieve
their goals (Bandura, 2005; Clark & Estes, 2008). According to expectancy value theory, the
value of a task is influenced by four components: intrinsic interest, attribution value, utility
value, and cost (Eccles, 2006). People’s behavior is motivated by their value beliefs in the task
(Pintrich, 2003). The perceived value of a task is influenced by the utility value that the
individual places on that task to achieve one’s goals (Eccles, 2006). A person’s expectancies and
values for achievement predict their performance, and if people believe that the task will be
useful to attain a future goal, then they will be motivated to engage in the task (Wigfield &
Cambria, 2010). Therefore, it is critical for an individual to personally internalize the value of a
task in order to drive the appropriate behavior. Furthermore, in goal setting and goal orientation
research, the lack of setting concrete, challenging, and current goals can have a negative impact
on motivation (Clark & Estes, 2008; Dembo & Eaton, 2000; Denler, Wolters, & Benzon, 2006;
Locke & Latham, 1991).
Development officers’ perceived value about performance goals. In fundraising,
development officers should have metrics and performance goals that are clearly defined and
measurable (Grabau, 2012; Nagaraj et al., 2015; Thomas, 2010). However, the field is still
emerging as a profession (Croteau & Walk, 2010; Duronio & Tempel, 1997; Mack, Kelly, &
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 48

Wilson, 2016; Smith, 2010; Strickland & Walsh, 2013) and lacks a consistent set of quantifiable
metrics of success (Wilson, 2015). The lack of existing goals and performance measures, along
with the lack of professional advancement within the field of fundraising, may signal to
development officers a perceived low value that these factors have to their jobs and inadvertently
suggest that development officers should expend a low amount of effort toward accomplishing
their tasks. Development officers need to value having goals, so they will be motivated to
engage in relevant tasks at work, continue to work toward their goals despite distractions, and
invest maximum effort into their tasks in order to achieve their goals. Clark and Estes (2008)
suggested that in the absence of clearly defined goals, individuals focus their efforts on areas of
personal interest rather than on organization-wide priorities. Individuals prioritize tasks that they
personally value, such as those that advance their own career, rather than help the overall
organization. The resulting lack of shared values about priorities across the organization tends to
manifest as performance goal orientation (Pintrich, 2003), competition amongst development
officers in fundraising, increased tension (Carver & Smith, 2016), and less sharing and
collaboration across the profession (Warren, Hoyler, & Bell, 2016). However, when
development officers hold a task in high value, then they are more motivated to persist even
when faced with challenges.
Self-efficacy theory as a motivational influence on performance. Perceived self-
efficacy influences goal setting, active choice, persistence, effort, and emotion (Bandura, 2000).
People who have high self-efficacy tend to be more effective and extend more effort, particularly
in the face of challenges, compared to those with a perceived low self-efficacy (Denler, Wolters,
& Benzon, 2006). In addition, perceived self-efficacy is positively related to group collective
efficacy, which is related to job satisfaction and organizational commitment (Bandura, 1977;
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 49

Borgogni, Dello Russo, & Latham, 2011). Models that are credible and similar can increase self-
efficacy and performance (Denler, Wolters, & Benzon, 2006). The factors described in self-
efficacy theory are relevant motivation influences on the performance of development officers.
Development officers’ self-efficacy. Individuals need to have self-efficacy beliefs that
they can achieve their goals in order to close motivational gaps in performance (Bandura, 2005;
Pajares, 2006). The job of fundraising lacks a clear career path, which hinders the pool of
potential development officers who have the motivation to enter and persist in the field (Smith,
2010). If development officers do not feel efficacious about operating through each of the
phases of the fundraising cycle, then they will not engage in their tasks to efficiently and
effectively achieve their fundraising goals. The literature consists of several suggestions, such as
to create academic and internship programs (Smith, 2010; Strickland & Walsh, 2013) and to
recruit and train people with transferable skills in sales, marketing, and customer service (Smith,
2010), that could help address performance gaps and help improve self-efficacy in the
fundraising field. The role of the immediate supervisor also has the potential to have a major
impact on a development officer’s feelings of self-efficacy (Edgington, 2013). In practice,
leaders of development organizations often claim that they “neither have the time nor
organizational resources to train inexperienced candidates on the hard skills necessary to be
successful” (Smith, 2010, p. 89). This leaves development officers to their own devices to
acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to feel a sufficient level of self-efficacy to perform.
Development officers have different motivations for actively choosing to engage in
fundraising work and persisting in their job (Croteau & Wolk, 2010). Ineffective supervisors and
the lack of opportunities for professional advancement are common factors in the low retention
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 50

of development officers (Croteau, 2009; Croteau & Wolk, 2010; Jo, 2008; Kaye & Jordan-
Evans, 2005). These topics will be addressed in the section on organizational influences.
Feedback can be important for assessing gaps and improving performance, and
supervisors can increase the self-efficacy of development officers by providing them with
formative feedback (Shute, 2008). When development officers do not have the appropriate
knowledge, skills, and motivation to perform, they struggle to justify the effort they are expected
to put forth in their jobs. These conditions negatively influence their levels of stress and job
satisfaction (Haggerty, 2015). Low job satisfaction was found to be one of the highest predictors
of employees leaving their jobs (Griffeth et al., 2000). This was further corroborated by Oliver’s
(2007) study of the turnover problem of fundraisers in higher education. Ultimately, the
motivation influence of development officers not feeling efficacious about their contributions has
the potential to increase their intent to leave, which negatively impacts goal achievement and
compounds the costs of low retention for the institution (Iarrobino, 2006; Thomas, 2010).
Table 3 shows two types of assumed motivation influences for development officers to
meet their goal to raise $100 million by July 2022.
Table 3
Development Officers’ Motivation Influences
Assumed Motivation Influences Motivational Influence Assessments
Value Orientation:
Development officers need to value
having individual goals that are specific,
current, concrete, challenging, achievable,
measurable, and time bound.
Use interviews to explore the value that
development officers place on having goals
that are specific and measurable.
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 51

Self-Efficacy:
Development officers need to believe they
are capable of effectively operating
through the steps of the fundraising cycle,
also known as the development, donor, or
solicitation cycle.
Use interviews to explore the self-efficacy of
development officers in specific skills (e.g.,
to identify prospective donors, qualify
prospects, solicit prospects, and steward
donors).

Organizational Influences
Organizational influences can either facilitate or impede an employee’s performance.
Organizational factors that influence performance may include the organization’s structure,
policies, practices, processes, culture, equipment, and resources. Organizational culture
manifests in different ways–in the environment, in groups, and in individuals–and influences a
person’s motivation to perform (Hirabayashi, n.d.). Schein’s (2004) description of
organizational culture is based on three levels: the underlying assumptions, espoused beliefs, and
artifacts of members of the organization. These levels align with sociocultural theory that
operationalizes culture into cultural models and cultural settings. Buckingham and Coffman’s
(1999) questions, including whether an employee knows his or her organization’s expectations,
has the resources needed to do the work correctly, has a supportive and encouraging
environment, and has opportunities to grow, can be used to assess the strength of an organization
to attract and retain high performing, engaged employees. These questions point to the
importance of organizational influences on performance. Clear goal setting and wraparound
support from the organization to achieve these goals impact retention. Ultimately, development
officers’ ability to meet the goals that the organization has supported them in setting will support
their ability to succeed and attain years of experience in the profession. The theories on cultural
models and cultural settings will now be discussed and applied to the context of the pertinent
organizational barriers of development officers to achieving their fundraising goals.
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 52

Cultural models. Cultural models include the engrained values, shared beliefs,
underlying assumptions, and automated practices of those collectively in the organization (Clark
& Estes, 2008). Cultural models are essentially the internal attitudes held by people in the
organization and are often difficult to physically identify because they are not concrete
(Hirabayashi, n.d.). An organization may have a broad overarching cultural model as well as
several subcultures within the organization (Clark & Estes, 2008). The beliefs and values of the
organization’s founders or leaders largely shape the practices of the organization (Berger, 2014).
These legacy characteristics are seemingly imprinted on the organization (Schneider, Brief, &
Guzzo, 1996). Since leaders set the tone of the organization (Berger, 2014) and shape the
organization’s culture, the change of this culture involves altering the internal shared values and
institutional structure or practices of the organization (Kezar, 2001). Therefore, it is important to
evaluate an organization’s cultural models in order to analyze and improve the performance of
those who operate within it.
Alignment between organization and individual performance goals for development
officers. Development officers need to work within an organizational culture that values their
having appropriate goals. A cultural model influence of development officers is for the
organization to align performance goals with incentives that support individual accountability,
progress measurements, and meeting fundraising goals. The organization’s fundraising leader
establishes the fundraising vision and should translate this overall vision into individual goals
and metrics for each employee to be successful (Thomas, 2010). Externally, there is increasing
pressure for fundraising to be more efficient (Mann, 2007; Proper, Caboni, Hartley, & Willmer,
2009). This drive for development officers to quickly achieve fundraising goals is an external
influence of market accountability, which emphasizes efficiency and suggests that an
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 53

organization function like a business (Burke, 2004; Firestone & Shipps, 2005). However, the
field of fundraising lacks a consistent model of having clear goals and definitions of success for
development officers (Wilson, 2015). Consensus across the field has not yet been reached about
how to define success, how to consistently and quantifiably measure efficiency, and what set of
inputs and outputs should be used to calculate a development officer’s performance, growth, and
return on investment (Kroll, 2012; Sauvre-Rodd, 2007; Wilson, 2015).
The lack of setting concrete, challenging, and current goals has a negative impact on
motivation (Clark & Estes, 2008; Dembo & Eaton, 2000; Denler, Wolters, & Benzon, 2006;
Locke & Latham, 1991), which hinders the performance of development officers. According to
goal setting theory, the specificity and difficulty of goals are important attributes in motivating
people to achieve higher levels of performance compared to people who are of similar
knowledge and ability and do not have goals (Locke & Latham, 1991). In the absence of goals
established by the organization, development officers lack accountability. The organizational
culture of accepting social loafing and having a lack of accountability is an important
organizational influence on performance (Hirabayashi, n.d.). Many development officers leave
before they are required to demonstrate their efficacy on the job (Cluff, 2009). Although
development officers are not a commercially driven sales force, their job function involves
comparable activities and is subject to similar demands and environmental factors (Boles et al.,
2012). Advancement leaders may consider implementing some of the professional development
measures of a sales force to better support the motivation of development officers to efficiently
achieve their goals.
Honest evaluation and feedback for development officers. Employees tend to value
having frequent interaction with their supervisors and receiving frequent feedback in order to
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 54

have the opportunity to adjust their behavior early on as needed (Sundt & Hanson, n.d.).
Specifically, development officers are influenced by the extent to which the organization
provides honest evaluation and feedback about fundraising performance. In Beem’s (2001)
survey, development officers indicated strong preferences for more frequent and more specific
performance evaluations. Nagaraj et al. (2015) recommended that development officers be held
accountable with clear metrics and receive highly personalized feedback, mentoring and
guidance, tailored recognition, and three-year promotion reviews to help motivate and improve
their performance. Organizations can guide employee behavior by providing feedback through
proximal goals (Denler, Wolters, & Benzon, 2006). Feedback is important for improvement and
change (Langley, Moen, Nolan, Nolan, Norman, & Provost, 2009). Formative feedback that is
specific, timely, and supportive helps an individual to assess gaps, increase learning, and
improve performance (Shute, 2008). Together, goal setting and feedback affect performance and
tend to motivate higher performance than either one alone (Locke & Latham, 1991). The
cultural models of the organization need to be aligned with activities that encourage and support
the beliefs and behaviors of development officers to achieve their fundraising goal.
Cultural settings. Cultural settings are the concrete factors, policies, procedures, and
actions of the organization that tend to be visible and observable (Clark & Estes, 2008). The
influences of organizational leaders, supervisors, and organizational culture are the essential
building blocks for strategic communication with employees, yet organizational and systemic
factors such as the formal practices of an organization can be barriers to employee empowerment
and performance (Berger, 2014). In social cultural theory, modeling is emphasized as an
important element in learning (Denler, Wolters, & Benzon, 2006). An organization that provides
effective role models and mentors to its employees can reinforce knowledge about the
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 55

organization’s mission and influence employee motivation, employee engagement, and
performance (Berbary & Malinchak, 2011). This study examined the cultural setting influences
of the time offered by the organization for performance evaluation and the availability of role
models and mentors provided to development officers as key organizational influences on
development officers.
Adequate time for development officers to engage in reflection and evaluation of their
performance. The cultural settings of higher education position the work of development
officers to be highly influenced by time. It takes time to cultivate strong relationships with
donors (Iarrobino 2006; Knowles & Gomes, 2009; Sargeant & Jay, 2004; Thomas, 2010). Trust,
satisfaction, and commitment are some of the top factors that correlate with donors’ reasons for
giving and making multiple donations to an institution over time (McDonald, Scaife, & Smyllie,
2011; Waters, 2008). Nevertheless, development officers are typically under pressure to yield
concrete outcomes. They are expected to quickly raise funds for their organization, not only due
to internal needs to sustain the organization operationally but also due to the external pressure of
market accountability on the overall institution and on individual development officers to
achieve results. Market accountability emphasizes efficiency and suggests that an organization
function like a business (Firestone & Shipps, 2005). Calls for improving operational efficiency
have been a growing trend in fundraising (Mann, 2007; Proper, Caboni, Hartley, & Willmer,
2009). Although time is a constant pressure for development officers, they need to be given time
by their organization to evaluate their performance. Development officers often do not have the
support of their organization to allocate time for reflection and assessment of their own skills and
performance. Therefore, an essential cultural setting influence in fundraising is the extent to
which an organization provides and encourages development officers the time and tools they
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 56

need to have constructive evaluations about their performance in order to identify areas of
strengths and weaknesses and subsequently engage in relevant training and professional
development in order to improve their performance.
A lack of role models and mentors for development officers. Organizations with
engaged employees offer training, mentoring, and encourage learning and growth (Berbary &
Malinchak, 2011). Organizations lack role models and mentors for those working in fundraising.
Development officers typically learn from experience on the job (Knowles & Gomes, 2009;
Kozobarich, 2000). The chief development officer role has evolved to take on both the
fundraising and strategist roles (Perez, 2012). However, it is common for fundraising managers
to claim that they “neither have the time nor organizational resources to train inexperienced
candidates on the hard skills necessary to be successful” (Smith, 2010, p. 89). Stress, burnout,
and turnover are rampant in fundraising and are particularly high for development officers with
tenures of less than five years (Edgington, 2013). Some of the most commonly cited reasons for
turnover are attributed to the role of the manager (Bell & Cornelius, 2013; Edgington, 2013) and
inadequate training opportunities (Haggerty, 2015). Repeated exposure to models who are
perceived as similar, competent, and relevant helps to increase retention (Denler, Wolters, &
Benzon, 2006), which is particularly important in a field plagued by turnover. Organizational
influences that involve training, developing, and retaining development officers further increase
the tenure of high performing development officers and improve their performance and
achievement of the organization’s fundraising goal.
Table 4 displays two assumed types of organizational influences for development officers
to meet their collective goal to raise $100 million by July 2022 and, ultimately, for the
organization to enhance capacity and retention of high performing development officers.
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 57

Table 4
Brandiam School’s Organizational Influences on Development Officers
Assumed Organizational Influences Organizational Influence Assessments
Cultural Model Influence 1:
The school needs to have a culture that
values setting appropriate, clear, concrete,
and challenging goals for development
officers.
Use interviews to ask about the existence and
importance of goals, and what factors are
used to assess, motivate, reward, recognize,
and incentivize performance.
Cultural Model Influence 2:
The school needs to have a culture that
provides development officers with honest
evaluation and feedback about their
performance.
Use interviews to ask about the extent to
which development officers are engaging in
self-reflection and self-evaluation, soliciting
and accepting feedback, and participating in
professional development.
Cultural Setting Influence 1:
The school needs to give development
officers adequate time and the necessary
tools to effectively evaluate their own
strengths and challenges with fundraising.
Use interviews to explore how much time, if
any, development officers spend on proactive
activities, such as planning and creating
workplans of their portfolio of prospects and
donors, and on assessments and evaluations
of their own performance in order to
determine areas for improvement.
Cultural Setting Influence 2:
The school needs to provide development
officers with effective role models and
mentors within the institution who
successfully operate through the
fundraising cycle to achieve their
performance goals.
Use interviews to ask development officers
about how they acquire organization- and job-
specific knowledge and skills; ask about their
onboarding, training, and professional
development experiences; and ask how they
know who to turn to with questions about
improving their fundraising knowledge and
skills.

Conceptual Framework Integrating Development Officers’ Knowledge, Motivation, and
Organizational Context
A conceptual framework presents a tentative theory or working model about a system of
important factors in a research study and the relationship between those factors (Maxwell, 2013;
Merriam & Tisdell, 2016; Slayton, n.d.). A conceptual framework, or conceptual map, offers a
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 58

visual way to integrate important concepts of the phenomenon being studied and the relative
interactions of these factors with one another (Maxwell, 2013). It provides a structure or frame
for the study and its relevant set of concepts, theories, and perspectives (Merriam & Tisdell,
2016). The function of a conceptual framework is to reflect what the researcher thinks is taking
place in a particular context and depict how a study answers the research questions (Maxwell,
2013; Slayton, n.d.). A conceptual framework informs the research design and aligns the
methodological approach with data collection methods and analysis (Maxwell, 2013; Slayton,
n.d.). The construction of a conceptual framework is iterative and can draw on existing
empirical literature, theoretical literature, thought experiments, and experiential knowledge
including personal and professional experience (Maxwell, 2013; Slayton, n.d.). Although these
sources of information are appropriate to incorporate into a research study, it is important to
think critically about each of these areas and their limitations (Maxwell, 2013). A conceptual
framework provides an overview of the study that can be helpful to refining the development of
the study (Maxwell, 2013). This process helps the researcher to narrow down and clarify key
concepts, questions, goals, methods, and potential threats to a particular context of study
(Maxwell, 2013; Slayton, n.d.). Furthermore, a conceptual framework can help to justify a
research study (Maxwell, 2013).
This inquiry used a constructivist approach and a qualitative study. A constructivist
philosophical worldview is aligned with the inductive nature of constructing a conceptual
framework in exploratory qualitative research (Creswell, 2014; Maxwell, 2013). Constructivists
believe that multiple realities exist and vary depending on the factors involved in the phenomena
(Maxwell, 2013; Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). In a qualitative inquiry, the researcher influences
the study as a primary instrument in data collection and analysis (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 59

This study uses the Clark and Estes (2008) gap analysis framework to examine the knowledge
and skills, motivation, and organizational influences and the relationships between these
influences. Based on existing research, thought experiments, and experiential knowledge, the
assumed knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences were specifically selected to help
answer the research questions pertaining to development officers’ performance as it related to
achieving the goal of raising $100 million by July 2022 and, ultimately, for the organization to
enhance capacity and retention of high performing development officers. These key influences
are illustrated in the conceptual framework depicted below in Figure 1.

STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 60

Figure 1. Conceptual framework depicting the interaction of development officers’ knowledge
and motivation influences within the organizational influences of cultural models and settings.
Key

Organization

Stakeholder Influences

Interaction leads to

Stakeholder Goal

Organizational Goal
Brandiam School’s Organizational Influences
 Cultural Model: The school needs to have a culture that values
setting appropriate, clear, concrete, and challenging goals for
development officers
 Cultural Model: The school needs to have a culture that provides
development officers with honest evaluation and feedback about their
performance
 Cultural Setting: The school needs to give development officers
adequate time and the necessary tools to effectively evaluate their
own strengths and challenges with fundraising
 Cultural Setting: The school needs to provide development officers
with effective role models and mentors within the institution who
successfully operate through the phases of the fundraising cycle to
achieve their performance goals
Organizational Goal
Brandiam School will achieve its campaign goal to raise
$500 million by July 2022 and, ultimately, enhance capacity
and retention of high performing development officers
Development Officers’
Knowledge Influences
 Procedural: Development officers need to know how
to operate through the phases of the fundraising cycle
 Metacognitive: Development officers need to have
knowledge of how to evaluate their own strengths and
challenges with fundraising in order to identify potential
areas of improvement and to more efficiently achieve their
performance goals

Development Officers’
Motivation Influences
 Value Orientation: Development officers need to value
having individual goals that are specific, current, concrete,
challenging, achievable, measurable, and time bound
 Self-Efficacy: Development officers need to believe
they are capable of effectively operating through
the fundraising cycle to achieve their goals
Stakeholder Goal
Development officers, as a unit,
will raise $100 million by July 2022
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 61

The conceptual framework of Figure 1 depicts the interaction between development
officers’ knowledge and motivation and the Brandiam School’s organizational context, within
which the development officers are located, as it relates to achieving the stakeholder goal that
development officers, as a unit, will raise $100 million by July 2022. The small, inner, orange
circle of Figure 1 focuses on the knowledge and motivational influences of development officers
as the stakeholder group of study. Development officers, portrayed by the small circle, operate
within the Brandiam School, which is represented by the large, outer, red circle in the figure.
The Brandiam School sets the organizational culture, overall campaign goal, and fundraising
priorities, all of which inform the activities and performance of development officers. In Figure
1, the arrow depicts the nature of the interaction by illustrating the direction of these influences
that lead to the stakeholder goal, which is represented by the green rectangle in the figure. The
stakeholder goal of development officers, as a unit, raising $100 million by July 2022 leads to
the organizational goal of the Brandiam School raising $500 million by July 2022 and,
ultimately, the organization enhancing retention, all of which is represented by the purple
rectangle at the bottom of the figure. The conceptual framework depicts the individual
influencers and the interaction between these influencers that, together, influence the
development officers’ performance toward the goal and address the research questions of the
study. Specifically, Brandiam School’s organizational factors influence development officers’
knowledge and motivation, and the interaction between these influences leads to facilitating or
hindering development officers’ achievement of the stakeholder performance goal of
development officers, as a unit, raising $100 million by July 2022.
Organizations that experience fundraising success are those that develop and maintain
positive relationships with donors over time (Iarrobino 2006; Knowles & Gomes, 2009; Sargeant
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 62

& Jay, 2004; Thomas, 2010). Development officers are responsible for raising charitable funds
for the organization and they need to have certain knowledge and skills in order to achieve their
performance goals in fundraising. One of the knowledge influences selected for this study was
procedural knowledge. Procedural knowledge involves stakeholders knowing a particular
process or procedure, knowing when to decide to apply that knowledge, and knowing how to
perform the task (Krathwohl, 2002). The role of fundraising is multifaceted and involves skills
typically found across sales, marketing, and customer service related jobs (Smith, 2010). One of
the primary responsibilities of development officers is to cultivate relationships (Cluff, 2009;
McDonald, Scaife, & Smyllie, 2011). For instance, development officers often solicit alumni of
the institution. Donations from alumni tend to be based on the perceived need for additional
support and what they believe their gift will help the institution to achieve (Weerts & Ronca,
2009). Development officers need to have the procedural knowledge of how to identify
prospective donors, how to clearly communicate the funding needs and impact of potential gifts,
and how to solicit and close gifts. They need to understand the donor cultivation cycle and have
some basic knowledge of areas of opportunity, such as gift planning, that tend to go ignored
because of their complexity (Sandberg, 1980). Unskilled and inexperienced development
officers, however, can damage relationships with donors and the organization (Knowles &
Gomes, 2009). Rather than development officers relying on trial and error or haphazard
activities in fundraising, this study highlights a critical procedural knowledge of development
officers with their needing to know how to work through the basic phases of the fundraising
cycle in order to achieve fundraising success. This type of procedural knowledge will help
development officers to systematically and efficiently raise philanthropic gifts from donors.
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 63

In addition, development officers need to have the metacognitive knowledge of how to
evaluate their own strengths and challenges with fundraising. Metacognitive knowledge
involves the knowledge of cognition and self, and includes actions such as self-evaluation,
reflection, strategizing, planning, assessment, and adaptation (Krathwohl, 2002). Development
officers need to be able to identify their own strengths and challenges, recognize potential areas
for improvement, and be willing to learn how to be more effective in fundraising (Smith, 2010).
This involves the metacognitive knowledge of self-assessment.
Motivational factors also heavily influence an individual’s performance (Clark & Estes,
2008). The motivational influences in this study were selected because the purpose of a
development officer’s job is to raise funds to maintain, sustain, and advance the mission of the
Brandiam School. Goals are a crucial motivational influence for development officers.
However, the field lacks a consistent set of performance metrics (Wilson, 2015). Studies on goal
setting theory, goal content, and goal orientation suggest that goals should be specific, current,
concrete, challenging, achievable, measurable, and time bound (Clark & Estes, 2008; Eccles,
2006; Locke & Latham, 1991). Development officers need to value having individual goals that
are appropriate to their specific context. People are not as highly motivated to perform a task
when they do not value the task (Eccles, 2006; Locke & Latham, 1991). Another important
motivational influence on the performance of development officers is self-efficacy. Self-
efficacy, which is having belief in oneself to perform a task (Bandura, 1977), plays a major role
in an individual’s motivation and the decision to begin, persist with, and contribute mental effort
to achieving a task (Clark & Estes, 2008). Development officers need to believe they are capable
of effectively operating through the steps of the fundraising cycle if they are to be successful
with these activities. Self-efficacy beliefs predict people’s choice to engage and influence their
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 64

levels of intrinsic interest and commitment to persist in an activity (Pajares, 2006). When
development officers have high self-efficacy and feel efficacious about their ability to fundraise,
they are more likely to engage in, persist with, and expend more mental effort into the tasks of
identifying, qualifying, cultivating, and asking for contributions from new prospective donors.
These knowledge and motivational factors were selected as important to evaluate because
they directly address the first research question of evaluating development officers’ knowledge
and motivation related to achieving the stakeholder goal that development officers, as a unit, will
raise $100 million by July 2022. The knowledge and skills of development officers influence the
motivation of development officers to achieving their goal. If development officers do not know
how to fundraise, do not know how to improve their knowledge and skills in fundraising, do not
have appropriate goals, and do not feel efficacious about fundraising for their organization, then
they will not efficiently achieve their stakeholder goal, which directly contributes to the
Brandiam School’s organizational goal.
Organizations have unique cultures based on the underlying assumptions, espoused
beliefs, and artifacts of members of the organization (Schein, 2004). Cultural models consist of
the engrained values, shared beliefs, underlying assumptions, and automated practices of those
collectively in the organization, whereas cultural settings are the concrete factors, policies,
procedures, and actions of the organization that tend to be more visible and observable than its
cultural models (Clark & Estes, 2008). The conceptual framework of this study includes the
organizational influences represented by the large outer red circle in Figure 1. These
organizational influences highlight the cultural models and cultural settings as they interact with
the knowledge and motivation influences and, ultimately, the performance of development
officers. It is important to understand the interaction between development officers and the
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 65

organization because the Brandiam School has a direct influence on development officers’
performance. There are many ways in which the interaction between development officers and
Brandiam School shape development officers’ ability to reach the organizational goal. This
study specifically looked at the cultural model influences of goal alignment and feedback and at
the cultural setting influences of time and role models because these four organizational
influences helped to address the second research question. The second research question
explored the interaction between organizational culture and context and development officers’
knowledge and motivation as it relates to achieving the Brandiam School’s fundraising goal.
Overall, this study applied the Clark and Estes (2008) gap analysis framework to analyze
the knowledge and skills, motivation, and organizational influences on development officers’
performance. The study employed a qualitative methodological approach to answer specific
research questions that revolved around the influences that help or hinder development officers’
fundraising performance. The conceptual framework in Figure 1 highlighted essential
knowledge, motivation, and organizational factors of this bounded phenomenological case study
of development officers at the Brandiam School. The conceptual framework conveyed a theory
that suggested that the interaction between Brandiam School’s organizational culture and context
and development officers’ knowledge and motivation leads to the achievement of the stakeholder
goal to raise $100 million by July 2022, which will lead to the organization reaching its $500
million goal by July 2022 and, ultimately, enhancing retention of development officers. These
key concepts directly addressed the first two research questions about development officers’
knowledge and motivation, the interaction of these influences with the organization and,
ultimately, addressed the final research question to present recommendations for the practice.

STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 66

Conclusion
The purpose of this study was to conduct a needs analysis in the areas of knowledge and
skill, motivation, and organizational resources necessary to reach the stakeholder goal that
Brandiam School’s development officers, as a unit, will raise $100 million by July 2022.
Chapter One provided an overview of the problem that higher education faces with the growing
need for fundraising while institutions of higher education suffer from suboptimal performance
and poor retention of their development officers. In Chapter Two, the review of related literature
highlighted inconsistencies in training and performance measurements for development officers
in their evolving profession. The Clark and Estes (2008) gap analysis conceptual framework
generated a set of assumed influences and possible needs of development officers at institutions
of higher education. The assumed knowledge influences on development officers were their
procedural knowledge of working through the phases of the fundraising cycle and their
metacognitive knowledge of understanding how to evaluate their strengths and challenges with
fundraising in order to improve their performance. The assumed motivation influences were
related to values around goals and development officers’ self-efficacy about their ability to
effectively operate through the fundraising cycle. The assumed organizational influences
included the cultural models and beliefs around development officers being given appropriate
goals and supportive feedback about their performance. The assumed organizational influences
also included the cultural settings of the time and resources provided to development officers that
facilitate or hinder their success. Next, Chapter Three will present a systematic examination of
these influences to focus on the validated needs of development officers at the Brandiam School.
The validation process will be described in the methodology section of Chapter Three.
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 67

Chapter Three: Methods
This study focused on the knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences on
development officers at a professional school within a large, private, research university to
perform well and stay with their organization. Chapter Three presents the research design and
methods for data collection and analysis. The following research questions guided this study:
1. What are development officers’ knowledge and motivation related to raising $100
million, as a unit, by July 2022?
2. What is the interaction between Brandiam School’s organizational culture and context
and development officers’ knowledge and motivation related to raising $100 million, as a
unit, by July 2022 and, ultimately, for the organization to enhance capacity and retention
of high performing development officers?
3. What are the recommendations for practice?
This chapter describes the participating stakeholder group of focus for this study, which
were the development officers at Brandiam. This is followed by the sampling criteria and
rationale for the participants selected for this study. After the sampling description is a
description of the data collection and instrumentation for the qualitative methods that include
interviews and document review. Data analysis follows. Finally, the chapter addresses the
credibility and trustworthiness, ethics, and limitations and delimitations of the study.
Participating Stakeholders
The stakeholder population of focus was development officers in higher education. This
research project was bounded by development officers at the Brandiam School in a
phenomenological case study. Therefore, the participants from this population of focus selected
for this study were all frontline development officers at the Brandiam School. Frontline
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 68

development officers are those personnel whose primary job is to engage donors and increase
philanthropic support to an organization (Staunch, 2011). The criteria used for their selection
were guided by a review of the existing research and experiential knowledge. It is appropriate
for a research study to have an iteratively constructed conceptual framework that draws on
existing empirical literature, theoretical literature, thought experiments, and experiential
knowledge including personal and professional experience (Maxwell, 2013; Slayton, n.d.). The
criteria considered for purposes of sampling the participants were that the development officers
had to have been currently working in a fundraising capacity at the Brandiam School. This
selection provided information-rich participants who had experience with both fundraising and
working in the organization being studied.
Interview Sampling Criteria and Rationale
The required sampling for a qualitative study is purposeful information-rich participants
(Samkian, n.d.). The research questions for this study were addressed by focusing on the
development officers at the Brandiam School as the stakeholder group of focus. The interview
participants were sampled using the criteria below.
Criterion 1. The first criterion for interviews was to sample development officers whose
primary responsibility was to raise funds from individual donors and private contributions.
These frontline development officers had some experience of working through at least one of the
five phases of the fundraising cycle. The fundraising cycle includes phases of identification,
qualification, cultivation, solicitation, and stewardship (Staunch, 2011). This experience enabled
development officers to share their insights about the meaning they make in their current
organization and the knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences that hinder or
facilitate their fundraising performance. This was consistent with the conceptual framework and
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 69

research questions that aimed to explore the knowledge, motivation, and organizational factors
related to the performance of development officers at the Brandiam School.
Criterion 2. The second criterion of interviews was to sample development officers in
higher education—those who work in fundraising at the Brandiam School. This criterion was
consistent with the conceptual framework and research questions about the influences on the
performance of development officers specifically at the Brandiam School, which is positioned
within an institution of higher education.
Criterion 3. The third criterion was to potentially stratify the participants by their length
of tenure, rounded to the nearest whole year, and recruit at least two development officers in
each of the following four categories: less than one year, one to three years, four to seven years,
and eight years and longer in a frontline development role at Brandiam School. The rationale for
these strata was that those with tenures of less than one year provided recent accounts of their
onboarding and training experience at Brandiam, whereas those with tenures of one to three
years provided different perspectives because they likely had experience working through a full
fundraising cycle. With the national average tenure of development officers being 16 to 24
months (Rothenberg et al., 2014; Thomas, 2010) and development officers generally not
achieving consistent productivity until years four and five (Thomas, 2010), the next segment of
participants provided another set of perspectives with their tenures of four to seven years.
Furthermore, the Brandiam School’s fundraising campaign was publicly launched seven years
ago; this guided the last stratum for this sample. Development officers at Brandiam who were
hired pre-campaign had different experiences and offered different perspectives than those who
were hired after the campaign was launched. Development officers in each of these strata
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 70

provided data relevant to their experiences as fundraisers and on the topic of retention. These
strata were considered for possible themes during data analysis.
Interview Sampling Recruitment Strategy and Rationale
A qualitative analysis provides an insider’s perspective on a specific phenomenon
(Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). The research questions intentionally focused this study on
development officers in one organization, the Brandiam School, in order to evaluate in depth the
influences and experiences of development officers from the perspectives of the research
participants. With Brandiam’s small population size, this project aimed to employ a census
approach to gather data on the population being focused on in relation to the conceptual
framework and research questions for this study. A census sampling is appropriate when the
stakeholder group and population are small in number (Samkian, n.d.). The sampling strategy
for this project was to recruit a non-random purposeful convenience sample if all members of the
target population did not participate in an interview. Purposeful sampling is appropriate for
qualitative research in which deep meaning is inductively evaluated for a particular context
(McEwan & McEwan, 2003). Purposeful or purposive sampling involves setting specific criteria
(Samkian, n.d.). A convenience sample was appropriate because the University of Southern
California (USC) Rossier School of Education Organizational Change and Leadership program
encouraged me to conduct this research project bounded by a problem in my place of practice.
Frontline development officers at Brandiam were my coworkers and were purposeful and
convenient participants for this study. Merriam and Tisdell (2016) highlighted that a
researcher’s relationship with the research participants in regard to bias and ethical
considerations are topics of debate in the literature as it relates to the validity and reliability of
qualitative data. In qualitative research, the researcher is an instrument in data collection
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 71

(Creswell, 2014; Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). I did not have a formal supervisory role with any of
the research participants in the sample for this study. Nevertheless, I emphasized to participants
my role as a researcher and not as an evaluator of their performance as a development officer and
not as an employee of the organization. I made conscientious attempts to avoid any suggestions
of coercion or quid pro quo in order to recruit willing participants in the study. I extended my
data collection period to two months to accommodate participants’ schedules. I was reflexive
and stated my potential biases upfront.
All 13 frontline fundraising development officers at Brandiam were invited to help
address the research questions for this study. All but one of the 13 development officers had
their primary work space on the same floor on which I worked; and the one remaining
development officer resided in a different state across the country. The small population size
was described in further detail in the Limitations and Delimitations section. As a long-time
employee of the organization of focus, I sent out electronic mail to invite each of the 13 frontline
development officers to participate in an interview for this study. Although I was a member of
the staff with the stakeholder group of focus, I rarely had daily interactions with more than four
development officers during an average week at Brandiam. Based on my experiential
knowledge, email was the most efficient and convenient means of communication with most
development officers at Brandiam because a few of them were rarely in the department’s main
office building. Additional information detailing my connection to the study is described in the
Credibility and Trustworthiness, Ethics, and Limitations and Delimitations sections.
Document Review Sampling Criteria and Rationale
In addition to interviews for this study, I reviewed the institution’s advancement website.
The purpose of this review was to better understand the catalogue of training opportunities
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 72

available to development officers. The data collected from document review triangulated with
interviews in relation to the perceived value placed on professional development and existing
workshops. The analysis considered whether development officers at Brandiam participated in
these workshops and if there were gaps or opportunities to enhance their knowledge about
fundraising and increase their motivation and, hence, achieve more success in fundraising and
address the retention issue of the problem of practice. The following criterion was used to select
the documents to review.
Criterion. The criterion of document analysis was to review the institution’s website for
fundraising related trainings and workshops offered to development officers. The rationale for
this criterion was to be consistent with the conceptual framework and research questions that
explored the knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences, including the available
resources that might support or hinder a development officer’s performance at Brandiam.
Document Review Recruitment Strategy and Rationale
The analysis involved reviewing the institution’s advancement website of training
workshops available to development officers. Shortly after receiving approval to review this
existing material, I reviewed the training website once every three weeks during a four-month
period. The rationale for this timeline was to review the catalogue of workshops at one point in
time and capture changes in case a different set of workshops or additional topics were made
available month after month. Documents, (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Saturation is when the
information being collected becomes redundant and new information does not emerge (Johnson
& Christensen, 2014). The document review ceased at a point when new workshops were not
added and saturation was reached.
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Data Collection and Instrumentation
Interviews and document review were planned for this qualitative study. These methods
helped me to collect data that were aligned with the research questions. The research questions
were descriptive for me to explore in depth the knowledge, motivation, and organizational
influences affecting the performance of development officers at the Brandiam School. Although
descriptive research questions can be addressed by quantitative or qualitative research (Creswell,
2014), the purpose of this study was to deeply understand the experiences, meaning making, and
processes of development officers that were involved in achieving their fundraising goals and
staying with their organization at an institution of higher education. Qualitative data collection
allows a researcher to explore in depth the thoughts, knowledge, and motivations of the research
participants and inductively make meaning to address the research questions (Creswell, 2014;
Johnson & Christensen, 2014). This research project employed a qualitative approach to
understand the experience of development officers at the Brandiam School.
Interviews
I conducted one interview with each participant. The interviews were formal and used a
semi-structured protocol. The protocol and procedures are described below.
Interview protocol. I used a semi-structured interview protocol to gain insights into
development officers’ perceptions of their fundraising work in higher education. This was an
appropriate approach for data collection because my participants have a wide-ranging tenure and
their experiences with fundraising vary greatly. A semi-structured protocol offers the
interviewer some flexibility during the interview to modify questions and their order and to
probe deeper into certain topics as opportunities emerge to explore them in greater detail based
on the situation (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007; Merriam & Tisdell, 2016; Patton, 2002). The types of
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 74

interview questions that were asked aligned with the conceptual framework and directly helped
to address the research questions around understanding the knowledge, motivation, and
organizational influences of development officers to perform well and stay with their
organization and, ultimately, achieve the stakeholder group’s goal to raise $100 million by July
2022. The interview protocol (see Appendix A) included both open-ended and closed-ended
questions. The interviews included open-ended background questions, experience and behavior
questions, knowledge questions, motivation questions, organizational context questions,
hypothetical questions, ideal position questions, and interpretive questions. The closed-ended
survey-type interview items prompted participants to rate their own perceived levels of
knowledge and motivation about aspects of fundraising. These interview questions were
constructed by reviewing the existing literature for assumptions about some of the knowledge,
motivation, and organization related influences on development officers, by focusing on gaps in
the literature around the context-specific application of these influences in higher education, and
by conducting two pilot interviews to refine the protocol.
An interview that begins with neutral, factual questions may help to lay the groundwork
to then explore more in-depth questions (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016; Patton, 2002). It is important
in interviews to establish rapport (Johnson & Christensen, 2014; Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). In
this study, I started with basic factual questions to gather background information from each
participant and to establish rapport. As the interview progressed, the questions became more
specific and personal. The purpose of this progression of interview questions was to reveal more
about the participant’s perceptions, opinions, and values (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). The
interview questions focused on the procedural and metacognitive knowledge of development
officers in relation to processes of the fundraising cycle. The motivation questions explored the
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 75

value that development officers placed on goals and their sense of self-efficacy to work through
the fundraising cycle. The questions were also designed to uncover data about the organizational
influences around goals, feedback, and resources available to development officers that hindered
or facilitated their work of fundraising. Probes help to clarify and expand on the participant’s
responses (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Although several probes were included in the protocol, I
incorporated additional probes during the interviews as topics emerged.
Interview procedures. This study used purposeful selection to recruit a target sample of
at least eight participants out of the population of 13 development officers at the Brandiam
School, and resulted in the recruitment of 11 interview participants. A goal of purposeful
selection is to inform the research study with data collected from those best suited to answer the
research questions (Maxwell, 2013). The sample size for this study was appropriate to collect
insights from a diverse set of participants representing a wide range of lengths of tenure and
experiences in order to answer the research questions about the experiences of development
officers in a large, private, research university.
Weiss (1994) recommended planning interviews to last an hour but scheduling interviews
for an hour and a half. Given their busy schedules, I invited participants to schedule an hour for
their interviews, and they were welcome to conclude early or to add additional time at their
discretion. I planned for interviews to take one hour but included an extra half hour in my
schedule to accommodate time for when a participant wanted to share more detailed information
that addressed the research questions and for my own reflection.
The interviews were formal, and I followed a semi-structured interview protocol. To
each interview, I brought a hardback notebook, at least four pens to take handwritten notes, a
voice recording device, along with extra batteries and extra memory, and my cell phone and a
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laptop with a power cord to use as backup recorders. I also brought two hard copies of the
information sheet and two copies of the interview protocol. Interviews should be conducted in
convenient, hospitable locations (Weiss, 1994). With the participants’ workspace being located
on the floor of an off-campus building in a large metropolitan area, a nearby space, such as a
coffee shop, building lobby, or restaurant, that was both away from the floor and convenient for
participants was not an appropriate place in which to conduct interviews. Therefore, all but one
interview was conducted in an office located on the opposite end of the floor of the participants’
offices in order to accommodate their busy schedules. The one exception was an interview
conducted on a Zoom videoconferencing platform with a participant who was unable to meet in
person. Zoom was used because it did not require much to download, both parties had
convenient and free access to this technology, and telephones were available to use as backup in
case of technical difficulties. For this remote interview, I used the office in which most other
interviews were conducted. The interview offices had a table and chairs, a door, and a frosted
wall that largely obscured the view from outside the room except for a partial view of the
occupants’ shoes. These offices were located on the other side of the floor from the participants’
regular workstations. This location provided a quiet, convenient, and familiar setting for the
participants. Conducting interviews in a closed-door office away from their usual workstations
allowed the participant and me to have a more focused discussion and a more open and less
inhibited dialogue than if participants were behind their computers in high-traffic work areas or
in a more visible, public space, such as in the building’s lounge or a coffee shop. I reserved the
room in advance and posted a small “Please, do not disturb” sign on the outside of the door to
avoid interruptions. Participants who had their own offices were encouraged to use the same
office in which other interviews were conducted for this study, however, they were given a
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 77

choice to be interviewed in their own office if they strongly preferred to do so—and none of
them did. Giving them the option to be interviewed in the setting of their choosing was intended
to help them feel comfortable to be open and candid with their responses and more willing to
dedicate the full allotment or extra time to their interviews.
After an interview, the interviewer should immediately reflect, capture thoughts about the
interview, and note the verbal and nonverbal behavior of the participant (Merriam & Tisdell,
2016). I took these steps and secured the data on a locked computer within one day. I
transcribed the applicable interviews verbatim, reviewed notes, recorded additional reflections,
and deleted the original audio files after transcription and analysis were completed.
Documents
Documents that existed prior to a study are considered nonreactive since they have not
been directly influenced by the researcher (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). I reviewed documents
that demonstrated the existence of professional development opportunities and training
workshops provided by the institution that were available to Brandiam’s development officers
(see Appendix B for the document review protocol). To triangulate data across multiple sources,
the types of documents of interest were the workshops and seminars that included content related
to fundraising activities. I reviewed the institution’s advancement website for the purpose of
identifying formal training opportunities available to development officers to learn and improve
their knowledge and skills about fundraising. These documents were connected to the
conceptual framework by directly addressing the research questions specifically around the
assumed metacognitive knowledge, values motivation, and organizational model and setting
influences on development officers.
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Data Analysis
Data analysis of interviews and documents began during data collection. Merriam and
Tisdell (2016) suggested that the researcher make observer comments that include notes about
nonverbal data and one’s own speculations during and after a session. They also recommended
reviewing notes after each session, thinking critically about each session, and reflecting on how
the data may inform a subsequent collection experience. I wrote observer comments while still
in the field and brief analytic memos after each interview and document review. I documented
my thoughts, concerns, and initial conclusions about the data in relation to my conceptual
framework and research questions.
Once I left the field, interviews were transcribed and coded. In the first phase of analysis,
I used open coding, looked for empirical codes, and applied a priori codes from the conceptual
framework. I conducted a second phase of analysis in which empirical and a priori codes were
aggregated into axial codes. Throughout qualitative data analysis, I applied some of Corbin and
Strauss’s (2008) analytic techniques to the data, such as questioning the data, comparing and
contrasting the data, looking for alternative explanations, and being open to analogies of similar
experiences in other fields. In the third phase of data analysis, I identified pattern codes and
themes that emerged in relation to the conceptual framework and study questions. Creswell
(2014) suggested combining categories into themes to maintain a manageable and organized
focus in a study. Theming the data is an analytic method of organizing patterns and repeated
concepts into topics (Saldaña, 2009). I made notes of emerging themes throughout the analysis
phase and revisited the conceptual framework to identify those that addressed the research
questions. I also analyzed documents for evidence consistent with the concepts in the conceptual
framework and compared them to the data collected from the interviews.
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Credibility and Trustworthiness
The foundation of credibility and trustworthiness begins with careful designs of the
research study and instruments (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). This qualitative study began with
identifying assumed influences on development officers in higher education. The assumed
knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences were explored by conducting sound
research. In qualitative research, the researcher is the primary instrument of data collection
(Maxwell, 2013; Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). A researcher’s worldview and presence affect the
participants’ perceptions and behavior (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). The reflexivity influence is
more pronounced in interviews compared to observations of participants in their natural settings
(Maxwell, 2013). Although a researcher’s influence cannot be ignored in a qualitative study,
threats to credibility can be reduced by employing a strategy of acknowledging, understanding,
and stating the effects of these influences (Maxwell, 2013). Reflection considers the researcher’s
positionality and is a strategy that can be used to increase credibility (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016).
I worked to maintain the credibility and trustworthiness of the qualitative components of this
inquiry by continuing to consider potential errors and biases and engaging in frequent reflection
throughout the study.
As an employee with nearly two decades of professional work experience in
advancement at this institution, I attempted to build on the organization’s collegial atmosphere to
quickly establish rapport with interview participants in my role as a researcher to promote their
providing candid and descriptive responses for this study. Reactivity, or reflexivity, is the
influence of the researcher on the study participants and is unavoidable in qualitative research
(Maxwell, 2013). To help mitigate reactivity, I made conscious efforts to remain neutral during
interviews. I limited my visible reactions and physical expressions to avoid conveying my
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personal agreement or disagreement about a participant’s response because I did not want to
hinder the candor and progress of an interview. I proactively thought about my impact on the
interview process and participants. During and after data collection, I immediately reflected on
my field notes after each approach. I maintained a researcher’s journal to reflect and take notes
on my questions, concerns, assumptions, and biases; and I visited this journal at least once a
week throughout the course of this project. I proactively attempted to check my biases by
reviewing my notes for rich descriptions of concrete behavior, rather than notes that may have
infused my thoughts and interpretations on anything other than notes marked as observer
comments. Also, I carefully reviewed the audio recording and transcripts to look for apparent
instances in which my presence may have impacted the participants’ responses. Dichotomous
questions and leading questions were avoided (Maxwell, 2013; Merriam & Tisdell, 2016) and,
instead, open-ended questions were primarily used, as Patton (2002) recommended, to further
reduce bias in data collection and increase trustworthiness.
Although still vulnerable to biases, triangulating data across different settings or
participants can be an effective strategy for reducing credibility threats (Maxwell, 2013) and
maintaining credibility and trustworthiness (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). I interviewed
development officers with a wide range of tenures, from less than one year to more than 20
years, and reviewed documents related to the phenomenon of study. The diverse sample allowed
for cross-checks of various insights, and triangulation was employed by using multiple sources
of data and two methods of data collection.
Ethics
Research is driven by the following ethical premise: “Benefits to the subject or society,
preferably both, must outweigh all potential risks” (Glesne, 2011, p. 163). Human subjects were
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involved in my research, and my responsibilities as a researcher included safeguarding their
wellbeing, being respectful of the ethical treatment of research participants, and following the
guidelines set forth by the institutional review board (IRB). Ethical conduct in research
primarily revolves around beneficence, which includes avoiding harm to participants, obtaining
informed consent, and protecting anonymity and confidentiality (Glesne, 2011; Merriam &
Tisdell, 2016). Guidelines from IRB further emphasize the voluntary aspect of participation by
research participants, who are free to withdraw from the study, without penalty, at any time
(Glesne, 2011; Rubin & Rubin, 2012).
My study was a qualitative inquiry. Interviews are appropriate for qualitative research to
richly explore experiences and phenomenon (Creswell, 2014; Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). I
aligned more with an interpretivist approach regarding the role of deception in research. A
researcher with an interpretivist approach avoids the use of covert methods because the
researcher believes that participants’ interpretations of their experiences are context specific,
which impacts data collection (Glesne, 2011). My approach to informed consent was to be
upfront about the purpose of my study early in the recruitment phase and transparent throughout
the study. Research ethics involve treating participants with respect, which includes being open
and honest about the purpose of the research, being respectful of participants’ time, not putting
undue pressure on participants, and being upfront about foreseeable risks, benefits, and efforts to
safeguard their confidentiality but also stating some of the limitations (Rubin & Rubin, 2012). I
clearly explained to participants that their participation was voluntary and they could leave the
study at any time. These instructions were explained in person and in writing in the information
sheet that was provided to each participant. Participants were required to review the information
sheet to participate in the study and indicated their approval of when to begin and record the
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interview. Recording interviews allows the investigator to be more engaged in the conversation
and tends to be more accurate than solely relying on field notes (Weiss, 1994). I obtained each
participant’s permission to record the interview and reminded them about their options to pause
the recording, request that some information be left out, or leave the interview at any time, all of
which were also stated on the information sheet that served as their informed consent. I assured
participants that I would make every reasonable effort to protect their confidentiality by not
including personally identifiable information on data collection materials. I used pseudonyms
for both the organization and participants when I included direct quotations. I made a conscious
effort to safeguard participants’ identities and did not associate identifying attributes of
participants with many quotations and findings in this study. I took copious notes and stored my
data on a password-protected site in the cloud using my password-protected computer, then
deleted the audio files after transcription and analysis were completed.
As a development officer in higher education, I was a member of the stakeholder group
of focus and was a full-time employee of the organization in this study. However, I clearly
explained to participants that my role was that of an investigator to collect data for this study and
that there were no wrong answers. In qualitative research, the researcher is a primary instrument
in data collection (Creswell, 2014; Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Researchers are careful to avoid
pressuring participants, and ethical questions may arise when the investigator has a formal
position of power, authority, or social power over the research participants (Rubin & Rubin,
2012). Although my work was categorized as a development officer, I did not have a job with a
primary role as a frontline fundraiser. I did not have a supervisory role over the participants in
this research study and did not have daily interactions with many of the participants. Instead, I
was a colleague, peer, or subordinate of the participants and was careful to emphasize the
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voluntary nature of the study so as not to make them feel coerced or pressured to be involved. In
the effort to avoid coercion, I did not promise extrinsic or tangible incentives to participants.
Given the demands of their work schedules, I offered a convenient familiar setting in which to
conduct the interviews. I also provided light snacks and beverages of coffee, tea, and water as a
courtesy to participants during their interviews. After the conclusion of each interview, I
provided a small denomination of a gift card as a token of my appreciation for their participation
in this qualitative study. The selection of a gift card was fitting for this sample of development
officers at Brandiam because they would have had several opportunities to use the gift in a
variety of locations at their convenience.
I was personally invested in the findings of this study because I sought to improve the
overall efficiency and effectiveness of my profession. I also wanted to further legitimize and
professionalize the field of advancement and fundraising, increase job satisfaction of individual
development officers, improve the retention of high-performing development officers at the
organization, and enhance the profession’s positive impact on higher education. My desire to
improve the field and the organization may have influenced my perception of the literature and
findings by focusing on topics related to fundraising metrics, goals, professional development,
performance evaluations, mentoring, turnover, and job satisfaction. Attentional bias or the
umbrella term of confirmation bias occurs when one’s beliefs and perceptions influence
strategies about where to look and how evidence is selected and evaluated (Hahn & Harris,
2014). Confirmation bias may have impacted how I interpreted data, represented findings, and
determined the recommendations on which to focus for an integrated plan. My personal
connection to this study had the potential to impact my recruitment, data collection, and analysis
by naturally spending more time with participants with whom I had an already established
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rapport or by focusing more on the responses that were aligned with my own lived experiences.
To minimize bias and potential conflicts of interest, I made conscious efforts to maintain neutral
reactions during the interview sessions. Throughout the data collection and analysis process, a
researcher should carefully review notes and reflect on the information that was gathered (Patton,
2002). I was especially reflexive during data collection and analysis by maintaining a researcher
journal to record my thoughts, observations, and emerging findings to guard against my potential
biases. I also engaged in member checking with two participants, one supervisor and one non-
supervisor, to ensure the quality of my emerging interpretations and conclusions. With the small
population size, I maintained participants’ anonymity and did not reveal individual responses.
During member checking, I discussed only the aggregate responses of emergent findings after I
conducted six interviews, including those of the two people who were involved in member
checking, then again after all interviews were conducted and a saturation point had been reached.
Throughout this inquiry, I followed ethical practices to conduct sound research, respect
participants’ time and responses, and thoughtfully protect their confidentiality and anonymity.
The ethical challenges that I foresaw in recruitment were minimal for this study. I minimized
bias in recruitment and selection by inviting the participation of every eligible stakeholder that
matched the criteria. I was straightforward with participants about the purpose of the study,
gained their informed consent by providing the information sheet, and reassured them that their
participation was voluntary. On one hand, the foreseeable risks for my participants were if
negative comments about the organization were associated with an individual or reflected poorly
on a particular group or its leadership. I minimized these risks by using pseudonyms for the
organization and individual participants, protecting and storing data in a password-protected
system, leaving out identifiable data when quoting participants, and reporting on aggregated
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data. On the other hand, the foreseeable benefits for my participants were the intrinsic value of
contributing to a research study that included findings and recommendations intended to improve
the organizational setting of their particular context and potentially for the field in general.
Qualitative studies have value in contributing new knowledge, as they have the opportunity to
deeply explore phenomena that would not otherwise be explored in quantitative inquiries (Weiss,
1994). Other potential benefits and implications included opportunities for development officers
to perform more efficiently and effectively, to raise additional funds for the organization, to
receive more informative feedback and valuable recognition, and to increase retention with the
organization. I attempted to maximize these benefits by accurately analyzing the data,
responsibly reporting the findings, and sharing the results. I will present recommendations to
key stakeholders and broadly across the organization, institution, and field with the intent to
drive lasting positive organizational change.
Limitations and Delimitations
While sampling in every research project has limitations, research may be strengthened
by employing mixed methods in order to provide multiple and different data for analysis in a
study (Johnson & Christensen, 2014). The primary methods of data collection were interviews
and document review of existing data. With a small population from which to sample, I sought
to deeply understand the perspectives of the research participants—frontline development
officers at the Brandiam School. These development officers were coworkers with whom I had
already established relationships and had worked with on a near daily basis, making it relatively
convenient to invite their participation in the study. Nevertheless, anticipated limitations were
those things that I could not control. I was not able to recruit all 13 development officers to
participate in this study within my data collection timeline. I offered interview times during and
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shortly after the end of the work day, and this may have influenced how much time the
participants were willing to spend in an interview. I could not dictate the schedules of potential
participants nor their inclination to fully complete each interview session. I was not able to
control the truthfulness of interview participants or their willingness to provide rich descriptive
responses to all the interview questions. Social desirability bias occurs when participants
provide responses they perceive are more socially desirable than reflections of their true
perceptions (Lee & Woodliffe, 2010). Although steps were taken to ask questions in a neutral
manner to minimize social desirability bias, the bias may have been a factor to some extent in
some of the interviews. The quality of the interaction between the interview participant and the
interviewer highly depends on the skills of the interviewer (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). I was not
an experienced interviewer and may have missed opportunities to probe further to gather some
potentially more descriptive information from participants. Furthermore, data collection was
limited to documents that were widely available rather than fundraising performance reports that
might have been informative to this inquiry but were not accessible to the public.
Delimitations are the choices that the researcher makes about the factors of a study that
have implications for data collection (Simon & Goes, 2013). Delimitations included the
boundary decisions I had made about the scope of the study. I bounded the research sample to
the staff of frontline development officers who were currently employed at the Brandiam School.
The population size was too small to claim generalizability to development officers across a
broad range of contexts. I chose to conduct one round of interviews to be relatively
accommodating and respectful of participants’ schedules. I chose not to interview former
development officers because I wanted to explore the experiences of development officers and
their meaning making within the current cultural context of the organization. Additional
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delimitations were my decisions to follow the USC Rossier academic program’s timeline as a
three-year study and suggestion to use the Clark and Estes (2008) gap analysis framework. The
framework was used to inform the research questions and conceptual framework for this study.
The multidimensional structure offered in the framework provided constraints within which I
explored specific knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences of the stakeholder group
of focus.

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Chapter Four: Results and Findings
This purpose of this study was to conduct a needs analysis of development officers to
achieve their goal to raise $100 million, as a unit, by July 2022 and, ultimately, for the
organization to fundraise more efficiently and effectively by leveraging its enhanced retention.
This problem was important to address because development officers’ work of raising
philanthropic gifts from private sources has become an important component of helping to
recruit and retain talent, including students, to institutions of higher education. This study
focused on the knowledge, motivation, and organization influences on development officers.
The following research questions guided this study:
1. What are development officers’ knowledge and motivation related to raising $100
million, as a unit, by July 2022?
2. What is the interaction between Brandiam School’s organizational culture and context
and development officers’ knowledge and motivation related to raising $100 million, as a
unit, by July 2022 and, ultimately, for the organization to enhance capacity and retention
of high performing development officers?
3. What are the recommendations for practice?
This chapter describes the qualitative data collected from formal interviews of
development officers at the Brandiam School. The semi-structured protocol allowed me to have
some flexibility to probe new ideas, clarify responses, and explore topics in depth to address the
research questions. Data collection also involved a review of documents of an online catalogue
of professional development seminars and workshops available to development officers over a
period of four months. The key findings are provided in Chapter Four. Recommendations for
practice follow and are presented in Chapter Five.
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Participating Stakeholders
The stakeholder population of focus in this study was development officers at Brandiam,
a professional school within a private research university. The study participants were full-time,
frontline development officers at Brandiam whose primary responsibility is to raise philanthropic
gifts from private sources. The organization expects these developments officers to have direct
interactions with donors and prospective donors. Over a two-month period, I interviewed a total
of 11 development officers out of 13 eligible participants for this study. The 11 development
officers had an average tenure of 5.2 years of frontline fundraising work at Brandiam, ranging
from about three months to more than twenty-one years. Each of the four tenure-based strata
described in the Interview Sampling Criteria in Chapter Three were represented by two or more
development officers. Each interview was scheduled for an hour with the option to extend the
time if the participant wanted to do so. The duration of the 11 interviews averaged 100 minutes,
and they ranged from 35 minutes to 3.25 hours. The identity of participants was protected by
using pseudonyms and by recruiting at least two development officers in each of the four strata
that were based on tenure of years at Brandiam. Four participants commented about
confidentiality more than once during their interview because they indicated their preference to
be thorough and candid with their responses while retaining as much of their anonymity as
possible. The participants in this study had a wide variety of tenures and could have been easily
identifiable if they were described in detail. To minimize the likelihood of a reader weaving
together a series of quotations and mentions and connecting them back to identifiable
participants, the participants were not named with individual pseudonyms, such as Participant A,
and specific years of tenure were intentionally omitted from the presentation of findings. Table 5
summarizes the number of interview participants in each stratum by years of tenure.
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Table 5
Summary of Participant Demographic Information by Tenure
Tenure of Frontline Fundraising at Brandiam Number of Interview Participants
Less than one year 2
One to three years 4
Four to seven years 3
Eight or more years 2

Findings
This study used the Clark and Estes (2008) gap analysis framework to focus on the
assumed knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences on development officers to
achieve the stakeholder goal of raising philanthropic gifts for the school. The findings in this
study suggested that development officers at Brandiam had remaining needs to enhance their
procedural knowledge and metacognitive knowledge about the fundraising process and how to
improve their fundraising skills. There were gaps in development officers’ knowledge about the
phases of the fundraising cycle, how to apply them in scenarios with donors, and how to track
them to monitor, improve, and report on their performance. There were also gaps in
development officers’ ability to evaluate their own strengths and challenges with fundraising.
The motivation influence that focused on the orientation of value that development officers have
on goals was found to be a gap. However, the motivation influence of self-efficacy was found to
be an asset for development officers’ performance. The organizational influences of cultural
models and cultural settings were evaluated along with their interaction with development
officers’ knowledge and motivation. The findings indicated that the school offered some goals
to development officers, however, there were gaps in the organizational culture of support for
achieving individual performance goals. Development officers worked in an organizational
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culture that did not strongly value setting appropriate, clear, concrete, and challenging goals for
individuals and did not provide development officers with honest evaluation and feedback about
their performance. Furthermore, although the school was found to provide development officers
with time to evaluate their performance, the organization did not provide adequate tools and
techniques for development officers to effectively evaluate their fundraising performance.
Finally, the organization was found to inconsistently provide development officers with effective
role models and mentors within the institution. This gap further impacted the knowledge and
motivation of development officers to achieve their fundraising goals.
Research Question 1 Findings: Knowledge and Motivation Influences on Development
Officers
The assumed knowledge influences for this study included the procedural knowledge and
metacognitive knowledge of development officers to achieve the stakeholder goal. The study
focused on the procedural knowledge of development officers to operate through the phases of
the fundraising cycle. The assumed metacognitive knowledge was that development officers
need to have knowledge of how to evaluate their own strengths and challenges with fundraising
in order to identify potential areas of improvement and more efficiently achieve their
performance goals. The assumed motivation influences were that development officers need to
value having individual goals that are concrete, challenging, and specific and believe they could
work through the fundraising cycle to achieve their goals. The findings that emerged were gaps
in knowledge and motivational influences, except for the asset of self-efficacy.
Finding 1: Development officers were knowledgeable about generally following a
broad process to conduct fundraising, however, they did not clearly define the phases of the
fundraising cycle. The data collected to address the first research question explored the
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knowledge and motivation influences on development officers about the phases of the
fundraising cycle. One of the interview participants suggested that she adhered to the
fundraising process that she thought was a standard in the industry. She said that she followed
“the one we've sort of been given…but I think that philosophy has always been the standard case
practice for fundraising.” She explained the process as follows, “You try to identify who would
be a prospect, and then you try to qualify them and see if they are going to be [a donor], and
cultivate them, build a relationship, and then solicit them for a gift.” Another participant, who
mentioned five phases of a fundraising cycle, similarly suggested that “there is a standard to
fundraising.… It's an easy way to understand and help guide the fundraiser towards the process.
They [at the university] make it very clear and very easy to make a note of what stage you're in.”
However, when asked whether the institution (commonly referred to as “Central” by many
development officers) offered any definitions about the phases of the fundraising cycle, none of
the development officers specifically confirmed that the institution provided this type of
information to promote their knowledge of this subject area. Interview participants generally
indicated their past reluctance to participate in training and learning sessions about fundraising
procedures because they believed they had little to no knowledge gaps to address. A
development officer, who had not engaged in formal training through the university, said, “I
think there is professional development.… Central provides all the training.… It's waiting when
you're newly coming into it but, you know, I've kind of done this before, so I [already] have an
understanding.” Similarly, a participant with more than one year of experience at Brandiam
admitted to not paying attention to fundraising workshops offered at the institution because of
the experience gained through prior work at another organization.
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Development officers’ self-reported levels of knowledge and self-efficacy were not
consistently aligned, and their not valuing having accurate knowledge about fundraising steps
may have led to misunderstandings in practice. In their interviews, the development officers
were asked for their level of agreement, on a 4-point scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4
(strongly agree), about knowing what actions they needed to take in the following six phases of
the fundraising cycle: identification, qualification, cultivation, solicitation, closing, and
stewardship. They used the same scale to indicate their degree of confidence to achieve a
successful fundraising outcome. Finally, they indicated their agreement about their level of
comfortability in working through each of the phases. Despite nine of the 11 interview
participants stating their belief in having strong knowledge about the fundraising cycle and eight
participants indicating a high degree of confidence about working through the fundraising cycle,
development officers were inconsistent with how they labelled, described, and applied each of
the phases of the fundraising process. One participant, who rated strong agreement in both
knowing and feeling comfortable with all the fundraising phases, did not express any concern
with not being able to clearly delineate the phases of the fundraising cycle. This participant’s
knowledge gap with two of the phases led to a misunderstanding about how to apply the
concepts to daily practice. The participant said, “I don't really find a big difference between
identification and qualification because being at a university a lot of identification is natural—it's
alumni or parents—so identification is from our constituents.” However, affiliation with an
organization is not necessarily equivalent to an individual’s affinity for that organization (Gallo,
2012). Although a donor’s affiliation may be one of the factors that a development officer
considers in the qualification phase when attempting to gauge a donor’s inclination to give, the
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affiliation of being an alumnus or parent of a student is not a clear indicator of an individual’s
interest, willingness, or capacity to make a financial contribution to the institution.
The ratings of all 11 development officers’ verbal agreement in having knowledge about
each of the six phases ranged from averages of 3.00 (somewhat agree) to 4.00 (strongly agree).
Across all the development officers in this study, they individually rated themselves verbally on
a 4-point scale as having, on average, the least knowledge (3.55) in the closing and qualification
phases and most knowledge (3.73) in the identification phase. One development officer
described her identification process as, “I really like to look at lists.… I look at people who have
given consistently over the years because usually that's a pretty good indicator of affinity for the
school.” She also mentioned that “I use a lot of online tools and then I use the research that the
university has.”
Furthermore, a document review conducted over a four-month period of the fundraising
workshops available to development officers at Brandiam revealed a likely source for some of
the gaps in knowledge about the fundraising cycle. The institution’s site of training resources
did not include any well-defined workshops about the fundraising solicitation cycle in its
catalogue. The site did not point to any reference materials or job aids that clearly defined the
fundraising cycle and phases that were specifically used at the institution. The review of the
professional development website available to development officers at the institution revealed a
lack of any workshops on the topics of qualification and closing. When development officers do
not value having deep accurate knowledge about the fundraising phases, they may make
incorrect assumptions about prospective donors and skip critical steps in the fundraising process
that would have been helpful to more efficiently achieve fundraising success.
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Development officers had a broad knowledge about a fundraising process, however,
the phases were unclear to them. The findings suggested that development officers did not
universally follow a standard process with predefined steps in their fundraising practice.
Although development officers did not articulate the same set of discrete phases when they each
spoke about their version of the fundraising cycle in its entirety, all 11 participants described a
general process of learning about prospective donors’ interests then asking for a philanthropic
gift. Their descriptions of the fundraising process loosely corresponded to the phases of
qualification, cultivation, and solicitation. However, eight development officers did not mention
one or both of the phases of identification and stewardship. Three of the interview participants
described the complete fundraising cycle as it was described above with five phases, beginning
with identification and continuing through stewardship.
One of these participants further delineated the fundraising cycle by adding a closing
phase as an additional phase between solicitation and stewardship. The emergent concept of a
closing phase that marked the step of securing a formal commitment from a donor about their
agreement to make a gift. I immediately incorporated questions about a closing phase in
subsequent interviews and explored this emergent concept with 10 development officers in this
study. Although the document review of the institution’s catalogue of fundraising workshops
over a span of four months did not include any workshops specifically about closing, all 10
development officers who were asked about this concept during their interviews acknowledged
that closing was a distinct step for them in the fundraising process. One development officer
acknowledged that closing a gift is “notoriously hard [because] after you solicit
someone,…getting that to move along can be hard and knowing even internally how to navigate
that is always challenging.” Another development officer shared that closing a gift can be
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challenging because “sometimes it’s difficult to get people to agree once they’re presented with a
proposal.” Another participant described closing as “interesting because that can be the
part…that gets all tied up in our collateral and our processes.” The participant provided
examples, such as delays with documenting the terms of a gift agreement or routing a document
for signatures, that reflected a similar sentiment that was expressed by two other participants
about challenges that occur internally that hinder fundraising success. This challenge was further
explored and is described below as an organizational influence in the last section of findings.
Development officers indicated a knowledge gap about stewardship as a distinct phase
in the fundraising cycle. Stewardship was the phase most commonly missing from the
interview participants’ discussion about a fundraising process. Six of the 11 development
officers in this study did not mention stewardship as part of their standard practice with donors.
Two participants specifically mentioned not being able to distinguish between the phases of
cultivation and stewardship. Their responses indicated a possible explanation for why more than
half of the development officers in this study did not proactively mention stewardship as being
one of the standard phases in the fundraising cycle. Although four participants, including one
participant who stated not knowing the difference between cultivation and stewardship, gave
different verbally scored ratings for their knowledge about each of the two phases, three
participants commented on having to spend a lot of time on stewardship and not having enough
time for identification. The interview data suggested that development officers acknowledged
some difference between cultivation and stewardship.
Furthermore, the document review of the institution’s fundraising workshops offered two
opportunities focused on the topic of stewardship and two other workshops focused on
cultivation. The stewardship workshops appeared to offer the same content because both
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sessions had the same descriptions and were led by the same instructor at the same time on
Fridays in two different months. The two cultivation workshops had different descriptions and
were explicitly targeted to development officers based on their years of experience in
fundraising. These data further suggested that stewardship was a recognizable and distinct phase
from cultivation in the fundraising cycle.
Development officers recognized the value of donor cultivation. When participants
were asked about the proportions of time they spent on each of the fundraising phases, verbal
responses from the 11 interview participants indicated that, on average, they spent the most
amount of their time (42%) in the cultivation phase. However, when stratified by tenure,
development officers indicated a variety of responses about how they ranked their knowledge
across each of the phases. They were not consistent with feeling confident about their skills in
the cultivation phase. There was no clear relationship between the time that development
officers spent on any of the phases and the length of tenure of the development officers. Five of
the 11 development officers verbally reported spending the most time in cultivation, whereas
four development officers spent the most time in stewardship, and the remaining two
development officers spent most of their time in qualification. The open-ended interview
responses about this topic were consistent with the development officers’ self-reported numerical
ratings of where they spent most of their time. Cultivation was highlighted as an essential phase
for fundraising success in participants’ verbal responses during eight of the 11 interviews. Two
development officers separately explained that cultivation is “when you communicate [with
donors about] your impact” and “when you listen to the donor’s interests.” One interview
participant described cultivation as a “very organic” process of “learning about people and their
lives and…what matters to them.” Another development officer shared that cultivation “is where
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I feel like I can actually get to know the donor and…kind of forget that you're a donor, and
you're a friend now.” Cultivation was also described as a phase with a lot of unpredictability and
an uncertain timeline because “things can kind of drag out a little longer or not always go as
smoothly as you see planned,” as one participant shared based on having a year of experience at
Brandiam. Nevertheless, one of the longer tenured development officers indicated that
cultivation should be where development officers, particularly those with “advanced portfolios,”
spend most of their time. The participant suggested the expectation that “cultivation is the
highest, then stewardship and solicitation, and closing would be next” in decreasing proportion
of time that development officers should spend on different phases of the fundraising cycle.
Another participant directly stated that fundraising success “happens based on what happens in
the cultivation stage.” She said, “I've seen people jump to solicitation and the answer is no
because the cultivation was poor.… I think it makes a world of difference.” Two other
development officers separately emphasized the importance of the cultivation phase as one that
naturally moves the relationship with a donor into the solicitation phase and puts the donor closer
to making a gift. One interview participant stated, “I ask really pointed questions throughout the
cultivation process, so nothing is usually a surprise by the time I get to a solicitation. We all
know it's coming…and everybody, including me, usually knows what the outcome will be.” The
interview responses implied that donors are more likely to commit to a gift when there is a
smooth and unsurprising transition from cultivation to solicitation.
The document review of fundraising workshops found two workshops focused
specifically on cultivation, which was the most frequently represented phase amongst the 18
workshops available during the review period. The two opportunities to learn about cultivation
were offered within the same month, and development officers were encouraged to self-select the
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most appropriate workshop based on their years of fundraising experience. One of the
cultivation workshops was targeted to development officers with three or less years of
experience, whereas the other workshop targeted those with four or more years of experience.
An interview participant shared his observation that the most successful development officers
work their portfolios “ultra efficiently.” He commented on the importance of development
officers effectively and efficiently working through the entire fundraising cycle and stated, “The
best fundraisers have incredible structure with putting their time into the right people
[donors]…in identification and qualification and just moving [the relationship] forward really
efficiently.” The interviews and document review suggested that development officers’ skills in
the qualification and cultivation phases were perceived as especially critical to success in
soliciting and closing gifts in fundraising.
Finding summary. Data collected from the interviews of development officers at
Brandiam and the review of training workshops at the institution indicated that development
officers did not have clear definitions of the phases of the fundraising cycle. The findings from
interviews and document review suggested that development officers had a knowledge gap in
being able to consistently describe the phases of the fundraising cycle. Although development
officers had assets in broad knowledge about building relationships in fundraising, there was a
gap in their ability to clearly define the phases. Without strong knowledge of the fundraising
cycle, development officers may not have efficiently and effectively worked with prospective
and current donors to raise funds for scholarships and other needs across the institution. Without
this knowledge, development officers were not able to apply some of these concepts to their
fundraising practices. This remaining knowledge gap may have hampered their fundraising
success. Development officers may have missed critical steps in their interactions with donors.
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Furthermore, movement through the fundraising phases was one of the factors that development
officers could use to evaluate, measure, and report on their performance to advancement leaders
and point to potential areas for improvement. However, a knowledge gap about the phases
hindered the proper tracking of development officers’ efforts with donors and their performance,
and they may have inaccurately tracked their relationships. These findings suggested a
remaining need for development officers to close gaps in their knowledge and motivation about
each phase of the fundraising cycle, which was integral to their performance and efforts to
achieve the goal to collectively raise $100 million by July 2022. Performance on the job affects
knowledge and motivation which, ultimately, impact employee retention.
Finding 2: Development officers were generally confident about their fundraising
skills and did not have high degrees of motivation to learn how to improve their skills.
Development officers’ verbal ratings about their degree of self-confidence with their ability to
engage in fundraising work were generally rated stronger than their knowledge about a model of
the fundraising process. When prompted to provide ratings related to their knowledge and self-
efficacy about each phase of the fundraising cycle, the interview participants gave the lowest
average ratings for the closing phase. On one hand, the data suggested that there were remaining
gaps in development officers’ knowledge and comfortability with working with donors in the
closing phase. On the other hand, the 11 development officers interviewed for this study
verbally rated themselves on a 4-point scale and indicated, on average, being most
knowledgeable with identifying prospective donors and feeling the most efficacious about their
skills in cultivation and stewardship. These findings indicated that development officers were
most comfortable with working through the beginning and ending phases of the fundraising
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cycle and were less confident about their skills in the middle phases of the relationship process
that focused on converting prospective donors into active donors.
Levels of self-efficacy about working through the fundraising cycle were higher for
development officers with longer tenures at the organization. Findings from the interview
responses suggested that development officers’ knowledge about the fundraising solicitation
cycle, comfortability of working through each of the phases, and overall confidence in achieving
successful fundraising outcomes were higher for development officers with longer tenures than
those with shorter tenures at Brandiam. The averages of 13 items across three questions that
were rated on a 4-point scale, from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree) are summarized in
Figure 2. The self-ratings that development officers provided verbally during interviews were
consistent with their open-ended responses when asked questions about similar topics that
triangulated the data. Nevertheless, it is possible that there was social desirability bias.
Participants with shorter tenures of working in fundraising may have been more willing to
acknowledge having lower confidence in their knowledge and self-efficacy about fundraising,
whereas some responses may have been skewed by social expectations of development officers
with longer tenures in fundraising.
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Figure 2. Summary of participants’ verbal self-ratings on a 4-point scale of interview questions
on their knowledge and self-efficacy about phases of the fundraising solicitation cycle.
The data were stratified by tenure and displayed in Table 6. The verbal responses from
development officers during their interviews were not consistent across the group about which
phase they rated lowest in relation to their knowledge. Using the 4-point scale previously
described, development officers with the shortest tenure rated their knowledge as lowest (3.00)
for the cultivation phase and highest (4.00) for identification. They rated their knowledge as
higher than their self-efficacy of working through each phase of the fundraising cycle, but they
felt equally somewhat efficacious (3.00) across each of the phases. The second stratum of
development officers with the next longer time of tenure rated their knowledge as lowest (3.00)
in the qualification phase, but highest (3.75) with cultivation, solicitation, and closing. This
group of participants rated their self-efficacy as lowest (3.50) in the solicitation and closing
phases and highest (4.00) in cultivation and stewardship. The third stratum of participants rated
their knowledge as lowest (3.33) for the solicitation and closing phases, but highest (4.00) for
1234
Knowledge of phases (average of
6 items)
Belief that I will achieve a
successful outcome
Comfortable working in each of
the fundraising phases (average
of 6 items)
Strongly Somewhat Somewhat Strongly
Disagree Disagree Agree Agree
Knowledge and Self‐Efficacy Ratings of Fundraising Practices by Development
Officers Stratified by Tenure at Brandiam
Tenure of 8 or more
years
Tenure of 4‐7 years
Tenure of 1‐3 years
Tenure of less than 1
year
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qualification, cultivation, and stewardship. Their self-efficacy was rated lowest (3.33) in
identification and closing, whereas they felt most efficacious (4.00) in cultivation and
stewardship. Finally, the stratum of development officers with the longest tenures rated their
knowledge as lowest (3.50) in cultivation and closing, which were still higher ratings than were
the lowest ratings (3.00 and 3.33) of all other shorter-tenured development officers; and they
rated their knowledge equally as high (4.00) about the remaining four phases. This group of the
longest tenured participants felt strongly efficacious (4.00) about every phase of the fundraising
cycle. Overall, development officers rated themselves as being most knowledgeable with
identifying prospective donors out of all the phases of the fundraising cycle.
Table 6
Averages of Self-Reported Ratings on a 4-Point Scale of the Levels of Knowledge (K) and Self-
Efficacy (SE) of the Fundraising Phases by Development Officers Stratified by Years of Tenure
Phase
Tenure of less
than one year
Tenure of one
to three years
Tenure of four
to seven years
Tenure of eight
or more years
K SE K SE K SE K SE
Identification 4.00 3.00 3.50 3.75 3.67 3.33 4.00 4.00
Qualification

3.50 3.00 3.00 3.75 4.00 3.67 4.00 4.00
Cultivation 3.00 3.00 3.75 4.00 4.00 4.00 3.50 4.00
Solicitation 3.50 3.00 3.75 3.50 3.33 3.67 4.00 4.00
Closing 3.50 3.00 3.75 3.50 3.33 3.33 3.50 4.00
Stewardship

3.50 3.00 3.25 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00 4.00

Of the 11 interview participants, many individuals indicated high levels of self-efficacy
about working through each of the phases of the fundraising cycle. Seven development officers
verbally indicated the highest levels (averages of 4.00 on a 4-point scale) of self-efficacy, and
two development officers with less than four years of experience at Brandiam indicated slightly
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lower average ratings (3.33 and 3.67) about their self-efficacy across all six phases. The
remaining two participants verbally expressed their individual ratings of 2.00 in two or more of
the phases. These participants had less than three years of experience at Brandiam and their
responses indicated that they did not feel comfortable with working through the phases of the
fundraising cycle. These findings suggested that retention of development officers impacted the
organization because longer tenured development officers tended to have higher degrees of
confidence or comfortability in working through the entire fundraising cycle than those with less
experience.
Development officers did not know how to acquire or evaluate their fundraising skills,
and they were not motivated to identify potential areas of improvement. When asked if the
phases had ever been defined and taught to development officers, nine of the 11 participants did
not recall engaging in any such training. One of these participants responded, “A whopping no.”
Another participant made a similar comment and said, “That’s a big no.” However, a participant
who had one of the shorter tenures at Brandiam mentioned, “They [Central colleagues] sat with
me…for something like 30 minutes…with what they expect for you to have in your portfolio…,
but I did not retain it.” This development officer stated, “I honestly am still learning exactly
what it means or who should be in what bucket.” The interview participant was not provided
with any follow-up assessment and was not offered any intervention at the organization. None of
the interview participants indicated that their knowledge about the phases of the fundraising
cycle was ever evaluated to ensure that declarative knowledge about fundraising had been
acquired at any time. When asked if development officers thought about opportunities to
strengthen their knowledge and skills, one participant stated, “We don't do a lot of that reflection
in general.… We're all really busy.”
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All 11 participants verbally indicated during their interview that they either somewhat
agreed or strongly agreed with knowing how to, ultimately, achieve a successful outcome in
fundraising. On a 4-point scale, the average of all responses was 3.36, which indicated their
general agreement about having adequate knowledge to achieve a fundraising goal. However,
when asked to rate the level of agreement of knowing how to ultimately achieve a successful
outcome in fundraising, a question adapted from Edgington (2013), two people hesitated to
respond. They each believed they had the requisite knowledge, but they were not confident
about being able to apply that knowledge to a real-life scenario. One participant commented,
“Well, you didn’t say, ‘Do,’ you said, ‘Know how to,’ so I think I know how to.” Another
participant had a similar response and said, “I would know how. Would I be able to? That is a
little bit unknown.” The data collected from interviewing development officers at Brandiam
highlighted differences between their having declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge.
Most of the development officers had declarative knowledge about a broad process of
fundraising and knowing how to fundraise, but there were gaps in knowledge about the phases of
the fundraising cycle and the procedural knowledge of being able to apply the information to a
variety of contexts.
Development officers generally found some value in professional development, but they
were not motivated to work more efficiently at achieving their fundraising goals. Six of the 11
development officers participated in at least one professional development workshop, with a
group average of 1.8 seminars, within the past 12 months. Every development officer who
engaged in at least one formal training mentioned being able to find something positive to take
away from each workshop. Although participants generally did not gain increased knowledge
about fundraising skills in these sessions, many of the interview participants found value in
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workshops as being opportunities to meet new people and network with advancement colleagues
across the institution. One development officer with a tenure of nearly three years of fundraising
at Brandiam mentioned that she found value in all the sessions in which she had participated,
including those offered by the institution and those presented by external organizations. She
said, “I'll pull a little bit from each one of them, but none of them have been like, ‘Oh, this was
all I need to know.’… I’ll get a tiny piece [of value from each].” Nevertheless, she believed she
gained the most knowledge from the workshops hosted by her institution because they “were
usually more relevant because they're talking about things based on the climate [here].” This
comment was another reflection of the importance of recognizing that fundraising was context
specific to the organization. Two interview participants indicated that they wanted training on
cultivating donors. One development officer emphasized that what happens in the cultivation
phase “is so important.” She suggested that she could improve her performance if she learned
more techniques and skills to use during the cultivation phase. She said, “I think I'd like to be
even better, maybe do it faster sometimes or more strategically, because there are times
where…you would have gotten more [philanthropic support]. There are things you miss or can
catch during cultivation.” Although these development officers recognized a potential gap in
knowledge and motivation, neither sought out opportunities to participate in workshops that were
centered around either topic.
Finding summary. The knowledge, motivation, and tenure of a development officer
impact the individuals’ skills, self-efficacy, and performance in fundraising. The findings
indicated that development officers reported having generally high levels of self-efficacy despite
their lower verbally self-rated levels of procedural knowledge of the fundraising cycle. The
motivation and retention of development officers are important factors in achieving fundraising
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success. The data collected from interviews suggested that development officers gained higher
levels of confidence about fundraising as they gained more experience. The data indicated that
development officers with longer tenures at Brandiam had generally higher ratings of self-
efficacy in working through the fundraising cycle than those with lower ratings. Regardless of
their years of tenure, development officers interviewed for this study did not proactively seek out
learning opportunities and generally did not know how to improve their performance and more
efficiently contribute to the organizational goal to raise $100 million by July 2022.
Finding 3: Development officers largely relied on their own experience and
developed their own approaches to their fundraising process. All 11 interview participants
indicated that they had learned, or were in the process of learning, through experience how to
conduct fundraising. Eight development officers asserted to have learned about the fundraising
process prior to working at Brandiam. However, the fundraising activities conducted at one
organization are not necessarily effective at another organization (Cook & Lasher, 1996). The
data collected through interviews supported the assertion found in the literature that suggested
that fundraising is context specific, and development officers may need to use different
techniques when working with donors of other institutions. One development officer
emphasized that being “clear…and…inclusive…[was] key to retaining good fundraisers.” She
suggested that onboarding include a regular practice of colleagues proactively “communicating
about the culture and the expectations” of Brandiam’s cultural norms. She mentioned internal
communication and collaboration would have been helpful to her when she was a new employee
at Brandiam to avoid missteps while working with other colleagues and donors. In this study,
development officers with fundraising experience at other organizations described differences
they had observed between fundraising at their former organizations and at Brandiam.
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Development officers were not formally trained on how to fundraise. When asked
about their onboarding and training experience at Brandiam, nine participants revealed that they
had not received any formal training about the fundraising process. These nine development
officers also separately indicated that they were not required to participate in any type of
fundraiser training. A development officer with a tenure of more than five years recounted her
onboarding experience and stated, “There's so much learning when you're coming on to a
university just to use the system, like that's a whole other learning curve in how to kind of work
within [the institution].” She further explained that the institution’s technology systems and the
organization’s processes were challenging to try to “master,” and she was given very little to no
training about how to use those resources. A participant with four years of experience at
Brandiam similarly commented about not being offered any training or onboarding about how to
fundraise at Brandiam. One individual rationalized not having been given any information about
the institution and not being required to participate in any training because he had prior
fundraising experience at another organization. The participant stated, “People were friendly,
but I can't say there was any kind of particular mentoring.” A development officer with a tenure
of two years at Brandiam described her onboarding experience as having been given an
unhelpful “175 PowerPoint [slide deck]” from a peer colleague and organizational marketing
brochures from her manager.
One anomaly in the interview data was the onboarding experience of a development
officer with a tenure of one year. She was informed about specific training workshops offered
within the institution and encouraged to attend a conference with an external organization. She
mentioned that her manager told her that fundraising workshops were available at their
institution and said, “I think anything was encouraged, especially for me being new.… I could go
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to as many as possible that would be helpful, so I tried to do that.” The interview participant also
stated, “I went to a Salesforce training which helped us to just go over the systems in place to
kind of track everything.” Salesforce was an online database that development officers across
the institution were expected to use to enter, track, and manage data about donors and their
performance. Advancement leaders at the institution used the data in this system to generate
monthly internal reports about fundraising activity. Another development officer with less than
one year of experience at Brandiam also indicated that she was required to participate in one
brief training about the Salesforce technology platform. She added, “We continue to be
generally encouraged for professional development as far as training in fundraising techniques,”
however, she was not instructed to go to any particular workshops. Although development
officers mentioned that opportunities for training and professional development existed, only two
participants stated that they had been encouraged to attend any specific training or workshop.
Development officers had the option to seek out learning opportunities and participate in training
workshops, or not.
Development officers each created their own fundraising approach. Development
officers within the organization had different styles of how they conducted fundraising. The
interview participants openly acknowledged that their colleagues applied different approaches
and techniques to their work in fundraising. One participant described Brandiam’s advancement
team and said, “Everyone has a different agenda and style.… Our constituents have very
different types of personalities…, so one size does not fit all.” Without any formal training about
fundraising that was specific to Brandiam, development officers often created their own methods
to fundraise or adapted portions of styles they had observed or learned about from others. One
development officer came up with her own self-imposed “meet, greet, ask” process that she
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developed during her first year at Brandiam. She said, “I kind of developed the loose thought
that…if I met with you three times then [my process with the donor would include] an
introduction, a conversation, and ask.” This process did not correspond to the complete
fundraising solicitation cycle that included phases from identification to stewardship. Another
interview participant shared a rule of thumb she had learned at Brandiam: “They say that
normally it takes anywhere between three to four visits to cultivate someone, but everyone kind
of follows a different track.” Two other development officers separately repeated a similar belief
about the number of meetings it would take to cultivate a donor. When asked about the basis of
this rule of thumb, each development officer mentioned having heard it passed down from
someone else, including a manager at Brandiam, but they did not necessarily use it as a method
to guide their fundraising work.
All 11 interview participants expressed favorable comments about learning to fundraise
through firsthand experience. Two participants suggested that the concepts of a standard
fundraising cycle were not necessarily useful in practice. One participant with nearly four years
of experience at Brandiam stated, “Those stages do mean something but, honestly, I think
sometimes it’s just gut feeling and being more intuitive.… When you’re experienced, you can
skip some of this and jump right to this.” A development officer with less than three years of
tenure stated, “A lot of that [learning about fundraising] comes from experience, having gone
through the process.” One of the longer tenured development officers shared her observation
and made a similar comment when she said, "I see the new people and younger people trying to
figure out what to do…but I think it's experience." She later stated, “I think it's just experience
over time and seeing what works and doesn't work, trying a whole lot of different things.” One
participant simply stated, “There’s no set process that I follow.” A review of the professional
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development site did not reveal any specific workshops explicitly targeted to new development
officers or to seasoned officers who were interested in refreshing their declarative knowledge or
gaining new skills about fundraising practices.
Development officers valued building long-term relationships with donors more than
meeting fundraising goals and deadlines. Without formal onboarding or specific guidance
about how to conduct fundraising at the organization, development officers used different
fundraising styles in their work. Despite their different styles, all 11 development officers at
Brandiam each made similar comments about describing their approach to fundraising as
allowing donors to set their own pace and timeline for making a gift. Every interview participant
mentioned more than once the need to build “trust” with donors. One participant shared her
approach with donors as wanting them to trust her because “it's not just about the money. I want
it [the donation] to be a good fit.” She explained her fundraising style as one of putting very
little pressure on donors to make philanthropic contributions. She stated that she would tell a
donor, “If you think that you want to try that out…and your money's gonna go to a good cause,
please donate, but if it's not something that you want to do right now, then I don't want you to.”
She explained that she felt comfortable taking a long-term approach with donors because she was
able to genuinely tell them, “I’m here for the long run and…my relationship with you is not
going to change regardless [of whether or not you make a gift today].” Another participant
suggested that the organization’s intention behind having a culture that emphasized a long-term
outlook was to help make development officers and donors feel at ease with one another. The
long-term outlook gave development officers permission to prioritize building authentic
relationships and helped donors to not feel rushed to make quick decisions about making a gift to
the school.
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Another participant shared similar sentiments and pointed out how Brandiam’s culture
had an impact on development officers’ motivation despite having a potentially detrimental
effect on their short-term performance metrics. Development officers typically acknowledged
that they could be more efficient about asking donors for immediate gifts. Although a short-term
outlook would provide the staff with higher performance ratios of successful conversions of
fundraising activity that resulted in donations, advancement staff at Brandiam did not subscribe
to this practice. Advancement leaders and development officers generally believed that a rushed
approach would result in smaller donations to the school than if they had spent more time
helping each donor figure out the best area for the donor to support in a “personally meaningful”
way. Furthermore, as another interview participant stated, development officers believed that
they should take steps with donors “based on what's in the donor’s best interest [and] the long-
term relationship with the school, not this year's sales numbers.” She further commented that a
short-term approach would be “unfair to the donor…[and], ultimately, to the university for not
being careful and thoughtful with that donor.” Another participant explained her reasoning for
not following any set process with fundraising as follows: “These are long-term
relationships…and they self-identify when they're ready to make a gift most of the time.”
The interview participants reflected similar sentiments about letting donors lead their
own pace of readiness toward making a gift, which determined the appropriate phase in which
development officers would categorize donors throughout the fundraising cycle. Development
officers tracked these stages in Salesforce for data that were used in monthly performance reports
generated by the institution. Development officers at Brandiam felt efficacious to achieve their
fundraising goals because of the support they received from the organization’s leadership that
encouraged development officers to focus on long-term relationships. This organizational
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influence interacted with development officers’ knowledge and motivation and is further
described below in the finding about cultural models and cultural settings.
Finding summary. Interview data suggested that development officers used a variety of
approaches to perform their fundraising work and largely relied on their firsthand on-the-job
experience. The document review of the training site revealed a lack of onboarding workshops
and resources for new employees in fundraising. When new development officers did not have
strong onboarding experiences, they had remaining gaps in knowledge about how to fundraise
and were unable to effectively use resources and approaches that were context-specific to
Brandiam. These gaps resulted in potentially less efficient fundraising than if they had engaged
in formal training to evaluate and improve their fundraising skills. In addition, development
officers did not have knowledge of or seek out to acquire approaches on how to conduct
fundraising, evaluate their skills, and improve their knowledge and skills throughout their range
of experience. The gaps in development officers’ procedural and metacognitive knowledge
interacted with their motivation about not highly valuing having individual goals. Nevertheless,
development officers believed they were capable of achieving fundraising success and adopted
their own potentially less efficient and less effective methods for how to achieve the collective
goal of raising $100 million.
Finding 4: Development officers did not highly value having individual goals. Data
demonstrated that development officers did not highly value having individual goals that were
specific, current, concrete, challenging, achievable, measurable, and time bound. Ten of the 11
interview participants mentioned that 12 visits per month was a standard goal set by the
university for all development officers across the institution. In addition, all 11 development
officers at Brandiam acknowledged that they had an individual fundraising dollar goal for the
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year. Three of the interview participants, however, had trouble recounting the amount of their
individual fundraising dollar goal. When asked about goals for the year, one participant asked,
“Goals? What are those? [My goal is] don’t get fired…and whatever they assign me.” Another
participant shared how her boss “forgot to even mention [goals] could have been a
possibility…so I set a goal.” Development officers at Brandiam lacked clarity and accountability
about the performance goals that were valued by the organization. A development officer with
more than a year of tenure at Brandiam stated, “There hasn't been a lot of metrics like, ‘I'm
tasking you with raising this much.’” The development officer’s lack of clarity about the value
of having an individual fundraising goal led one participant to suggest a conservative goal in
order to “undershoot and overperform.”
The goal setting process was unclear to development officers. Despite every
development officer having an individual fundraising dollar goal that was either approved or
assigned by a supervisor in some manner, there was not a consistent process for how the goal
was set. Some of the fundraising goals were established with input from the development
officer, whereas some people’s fundraising goals were set without their direct input. One of the
longer tenured development officers said that goal setting was done “in concert with our
supervisors.” She described how her manager asked her to set a higher goal than what she had
originally projected for herself. She provided the example that if she suggested that her goal
should be $2 or $3 million, her supervisor “might say, ‘You know, I think I'd like to see you do
$4 or $5 [million] even if you only raise $1 million dollars.’” The basis for setting individual
goals was unclear to nine participants. When asked how goals were set, one development officer
stated, “It was an artificial number that they made up,” and another person separately but
similarly said, “I think we made them up.” A development officer with a tenure of more than
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five years recognized that “there's a lot of subjectivity in our fundraising goals and…they're not
bad [because] at least there's something in place to benchmark what's going on.” Another
development officer commented about the ambiguity of goals and goal setting at Brandiam. The
participant shared an example of when a goal was seemingly first discussed during a surprising
performance evaluation. The individual explained, “I got a bunch of new [donors to the
school]…then [I was told] in my review [that] the goal was to reach X dollar amount.” The
development officer expressed frustration with that experience and recounted thinking, “Thanks
for telling me after the fact.… That goal was not clear in the beginning…and I was just shocked
to see that the numbers didn’t matter.” An interview participant with more than five years of
fundraising experience articulated her understanding of goal setting at Brandiam as follows: “It's
an aspirational goal based on our hope, and our portfolios, and where we think solicitations are
going to fall for the year.”
Development officers perceived their goals as unrealistic and aspirational. Eight
development officers considered their individual fundraising goals to be aspirational. One
participant mentioned being initially surprised by the dollar goal that was assigned as a goal for
the first year at Brandiam, then shared the later realization that achieving the goal was not
important. The development officer stated, “The first year it was like, ‘Oh my god, that’s a large
number!’ but it [became] pretty clear that it's not expected…with actual funds received.” A
development officer with more than two years of fundraising experience at Brandiam was
assigned a goal by a manager and divulged, “I don't feel like I have a say in terms of what I
should be raising.” She stated that her boss “tells me what to raise…so it just sort of feels like
it's just gonna come from above.”
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Eight development officers mentioned that their respective supervisor pushed them to
increase the fundraising goal they had wanted to set for the year. An interview participant with
less than two years of fundraising at Brandiam mentioned that her goal last year was $1 million.
Although she did not achieve her goal, her manager asked her to set a goal this year of $3
million. Although they may not have initially understood the reason for managers asking them
to set higher and more challenging goals, development officers interviewed for this study stated
that they typically agreed to the number without question. Their interview responses indicated
that they agreed to these changes because of their perceptions about hierarchy and positional
leadership of the goal setting process. A development officer with more than five years of
fundraising at Brandiam said, “I do think it's just an aspirational goal and certainly Central's not
holding us to that. I had said a smaller [goal] but…she thought I should raise it.” A
development officer commented about employees simply going along with the goal that was set
for each of them. The participant said, “[My boss] set that goal and asked, ‘Are you comfortable
with that?’ and people have to say, ‘Yes,’ of course.” A development officer with less than two
years of fundraising experience at Brandiam expressed having had a similar goal-setting
discussion with her manager. She recounted that she was asked to give a dollar amount of what
she thought she could accomplish for her first year, and her supervisor responded, “Let’s make
the goal higher. If you reach the goal, fabulous. If you don’t reach the goal, it’s okay as long as
you’re meeting the other number.” This number referred to substantive visits. Substantive visits
at the institution were described as conversations that development officers have with
prospective donors that move them closer to their making a philanthropic gift. One interview
participant explained that the dollar goal for development officers in their first year was “$1
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million per year for the vast majority [of us], though the emphasis was on meeting metrics of
substantive visits per month.”
Finding summary. Findings indicated that development officers at Brandiam did not
value having individual goals that were specific, challenging, and achievable because they
perceived that fundraising goals were not valued at the organization. Development officers
generally believed that managers set unrealistic goals that were not personalized to individuals
and their specific context. Interview data indicated that development officers’ performance was
evaluated against fundraising dollar goals that were treated as stretch goals rather than as goals
that were challenging and achievable. Goals were considered aspirational, and there were no
incentives and no substantial consequences if development officers fell short of meeting those
goals.
Finding 5: Development officers were not supported with tools to easily track and
monitor their fundraising performance. Until approximately two years ago, there was no
clear process or universal system for development officers at Brandiam to track their fundraising
efforts and performance. Ten of the 11 development officers, including nine of whom had more
than two years of fundraising experience at Brandiam, acknowledged the increased focus for
more data-led decision making and metrics that had gradually funneled down from the
university’s central advancement staff over recent years. One participant remarked that
“definitely the data portion has gotten exponentially better in the last two years.” Development
officers had the opportunity to record their fundraising activities in a centralized online database
referred to as “Salesforce,” a cloud-based constituent relationship management system that was
hosted on the Salesforce technology platform and used internally by advancement staff to
manage fundraising data across the institution. The institution generated monthly reports from
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the data that development officers stored in Salesforce. Despite acknowledging that performance
could be tracked on “I guess just that chart,” referring to the metrics found in the university’s
monthly report of fundraising activity, one development officer admitted to not regularly
tracking performance in any system. Another interview participant explained how the monthly
reports could be helpful to motivating improved performance. She stated that the reports
allowed development officers to compare their performance to their peers and to their own
performance by “see[ing] where your peers are and what you can do better…like if you have a
month of no visits,…it's like, ‘I need to start entering them.’” Another development officer
recognized the importance of making “time for some administrative stuff so that things are
tracked properly,” however, the individual rationalized not completing those types of tasks by
stating, “If no one's looking at it, it's not valued.”
Development officers need to feel supported with adequate knowledge about how to use
the technology tools and resources available to their organization. Three development officers
expressed confusion with the some of the fundraising jargon that was used by the university and
how to interpret the information that was presented in the monthly fundraising activity reports.
One participant said, “The nomenclature seems weird to me,” and mentioned that no one had
ever explained the terminology to her. This development officer shared a similar sentiment held
by a colleague in having confusion about “just the nomenclature within the system [Salesforce].”
Another development officer provided a perspective that revealed further confusion between
factual and conceptual knowledge that resulted from the organization’s lack of foundational
training given to development officers about fundraising processes and reporting. The
participant stated being confident with having knowledge about the concepts of the fundraising
solicitation cycle but stated, “in terms of practice from translating those to our system, I would
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say that’s where the dichotomy is.” It was not clear to development officers how to delineate the
phases in order to categorize donors into specific phases in Salesforce in order to accurately
reflect their fundraising efforts and properly report on the performance of individual
development officers.
The technology platform that was provided to development officers to track their
fundraising activities was considered by participants to be a marked improvement from
previously having none. However, development officers at Brandiam generally did not highly
value the comprehensive system and its potential to improve their performance. A development
officer with five years of tenure at Brandiam stated, “I don't find Salesforce to be a particularly
useful tool in managing your own portfolio.” A less experienced development officer made a
similar complaint about the system not being a flexible tool for staff to easily keep track of the
many relationships that development officers had to juggle. She said, “There’s not an easy way
for you to pull up and see it…on your own, so I asked…[some people] on our team what they
use [and] what works for them.” Two colleagues had each shared with her examples of
spreadsheets they had created and currently use. The development officer, then, created her own
spreadsheet “that wasn’t as detailed” as those of her colleagues. She developed her own system
for tracking because she realized early on that “you don’t take a break” from fundraising work,
and “it's hard to keep them [details of conversations with donors] all straight.” She stated that
she reviewed or updated her spreadsheet “pretty much every day,” then entered some of her
notes into Salesforce. Another development officer said, “I do think I can maybe improve on
them in terms of [tracking] changes in Salesforce.” A review of the fundraiser training catalogue
indicated that nine of the 18 workshops offered by the institution were related to an aspect of
Salesforce, yet only two of the 11 interview participants mentioned having participated in a
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workshop to learn about one or more topics related to using the technology system. These
findings pointed to a metacognitive gap and a motivation gap of development officers not
knowing how to evaluate their performance and not highly valuing their goals. These findings
also suggested an organizational gap of having a culture that did not highly value development
officers spending time to record extensive data about their fundraising work and interactions
with donors, yet the institution reported on some of these data points and institution-wide
fundraising work relied on much of that data. Moreover, Brandiam’s culture did not facilitate
development officers having easily accessible information to increase their knowledge of
context-specific definitions of fundraising terms, how to properly enter data into the Salesforce
platform, and how to leverage the data in the system to reflect their efforts more accurately and
improve their performance.
Development officers need to believe their work toward achieving fundraising goals is
being accurately measured and acknowledged. The interview data suggested that development
officers did not have tools to easily track and evaluate their individual performance. This lack of
performance-tracking tools contributed to development officers not highly valuing their goals.
One participant commented about not being able to track her performance of dollars raised either
in preparation of a performance evaluation or at any given time. The development officer stated,
“Actually, no money matters.… It's not like we have a tally along the way like, ‘This is how
much everybody has raised.’” She dismissed the need for development officers to have readily
accessible information about their fundraising performance because she said the topic was not
regularly emphasized in meetings. She indicated that the organization valued “donor-centric”
fundraising in which the “timing is gonna be up to the donor anyway.”
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When asked about the settings in which performance-to-goals were discussed at work,
one interview participant said, “They aren’t…. I just keep my own spreadsheet [for] tracking.”
When asked how they monitored their performance against their goals, seven development
officers mentioned that they relied on monthly reports provided by the institution. Although
these reports included several measures, the interview participants largely mentioned only the
rankings portion of these reports. Development officers had mixed reactions about how to use
the reports. One participant remarked that the reports created a competitive environment because
individuals were ranked against one another. Although one participant declared, “Those reports
have really been helpful,” she also revealed that tracking her activities in the university’s central
database was “all-consuming” because “there was…a sense of pressure” about results being
visible to colleagues.
Two development officers made separate comments about not highly valuing how
performance was tracked in the institution’s database because people could “game” the system.
One participant mentioned how she did not appreciate the practice of another development
officer getting involved in her existing relationships with donors only at the end of the
cultivation process. She described a common challenge with some of her colleagues who
regularly expected to receive shared credit on closing gifts without their contributing much
effort. For example, she said, “That's the only time the manager wants to show up is [when he or
she can say], ‘Let me know when I can come in and close it’ [and get credit for helping to secure
the gift].” Another participant was appreciative of being able to receive some credit for having a
role in fostering relationships with donors that took years before making their philanthropic gifts.
The development officer revealed, “I'm not gonna lie about this, but I am…receiving credit even
though I'm not doing the solicitation, so some of these are kind of falling in my lap.”
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Development officers were not motivated to spend time on understanding or discussing
the fundraising activity reports to track their performance. All 11 development officers were
aware of the institution’s monthly reports of fundraising activity, however, none of the interview
participants commented on ever having used the monthly reports in group meetings or in
individual discussions with a supervisor. One development officer shared, “We get these
monthly reports about rankings in it.… It's not really [been] discussed so far in any meeting I've
attended. It's never been brought up as a group.” Ten of the 11 development officers
independently claimed they looked at the reports on their own, primarily to glance at their
ranking for the given month. A development officer with more than two years of tenure at
Brandiam expressed appreciation for the monthly reports because they provided “a lot of
transparency to this job” about the ranking of each development officer and their respective
fundraising activity. An interview participant with less than two years of tenure at Brandiam
also commented that the rankings offered “a pretty clear idea where we all are,” however, this
individual added, “I just don't see the value.” A development officer with nearly three years of
tenure divulged that she found these monthly reports “mildly helpful.” She had limited use for
the reports and looked at them when she wanted to make sure “that what I thought I had raised
was in there,…[however,] I don't always look at it and I don't always do that.” She also made a
similar comment to those heard from other interview participants about how the metrics included
in the reports were not discussed amongst colleagues or brought up by managers at Brandiam.
She stated, “We don't spend a lot of time talking about that other than going, ‘Oh my god,
contact reports are due today; I'm so far behind.’” A participant expressed a belief that team
leaders at Brandiam wanted “to spend as little time on those things as possible.” These findings
suggested that development officers did not highly value evaluating their performance to goals,
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and Brandiam’s cultural settings and cultural models did not provide sufficient tools for
development officers to effectively evaluate their strengths and challenges with fundraising. In
addition, development officers did not feel supported with an organization that encouraged them
to engage in reflection in order to improve their performance.
Development officers primarily looked at their ranking and counts of donor visits. All
11 interview participants mentioned 12 substantive visits as a specific data point that
development officers were expected to track in Salesforce. One participant stated, “You’re
supposed to do twelve substantive visits,” which she described as steps in which “you’re actually
trying to advance a gift [and] moving forward.” One of the 11 interview participants mentioned
content other than rankings in the monthly reports. This participant regularly reviewed the
reports in great detail and was able to discuss specific and detailed information in the interview
for this study. This individual acknowledged that development officers were ranked by their
documented activity in Salesforce every month and highlighted “the formula that tells you how
they weight certain criteria—and they do weight [dollars raised] heavier [than other criteria].”
Although all 11 participants commented about the existence of these rankings, one
development officer expressed a contrasting perspective about the impact of these reports on
performance. She revealed that the calculations used for monthly rankings were skewed toward
closing large gifts. This formula disadvantaged development officers whose donor portfolios
had a different composition, such as a large proportion of cold leads or many constituents in the
identification phase, as compared to colleagues who had more warm leads or those who had
more mature portfolios with donors further along in later phases of the fundraising cycle. She
thought about the negative influence that rankings may have on her colleagues’ sense of self-
confidence. She suggested that out of nearly 200 development officers across the institution, “if
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you're out there trying to do visits, you're still not going to be like 150…[and] maybe some
people find it demoralizing to be ranked that way.” The peer-to-peer comparisons in these
reports had the potential to have a detrimental effect on development officers’ motivation.
However, an interview participant recognized potential value in development officers discussing
the institution’s monthly reports in their team meetings. She believed that “there could be some
proactive discussion with metrics within that report versus how it's presented now which is
rankings.” She suggested that her colleagues look at the reports to focus on goals related to the
number of people that each person wanted to qualify, the number of new people each
development officer wanted to engage, and the stage of each donor in the fundraising pipeline.
Finding summary. Development officers may have had some prior knowledge about
fundraising, however, they did not have strong knowledge about the technology used at their
institution. Their motivational beliefs and cognitive overload of distractions and their
perceptions about their work priorities may have hindered their learning. Data collected from
interview participants, along with findings from the document review, revealed that the
organization’s lack of training about fundraising terminology and context-specific fundraising
practices likely resulted in inaccurate reporting by development officers. Development officers
were largely assumed to have adequate knowledge about fundraising terms and practices. They
were not required by the organization to participate in workshops that provided clear definitions
of the fundraising phases. They were not offered job aids that explained how they should apply
the concepts of the phases of the fundraising cycle to track their activities in the centralized
database system. Furthermore, the review of fundraising programs at the institution revealed a
lack of opportunities for development officers to assess their skills. Development officers were
not provided with learning opportunities that focused on performance reflection, peer feedback,
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or self-assessments of knowledge and skills used in fundraising. The lack of organizational
resources interacted with development officers’ knowledge and motivation, and impacted
development officers’ motivation and hindered their ability to effectively evaluate their strengths
and challenges with fundraising. When development officers do not have adequate knowledge
about fundraising and the organization’s tools and resources, they will not fully and properly
record their efforts in the technology platform, nor will they be rewarded appropriately for their
efforts. These gaps hinder fundraising success across the organization and hamper development
officers’ ability to efficiently and effectively fundraise at Brandiam.
Finding 6: Development officers’ levels of motivation were influenced by how and
what they were held accountable for in their fundraising work. Development officers
generally believed they were knowledgeable and confident about their skills in fundraising,
however, their motivation varied about their fundraising performance goals. The monthly
reports that displayed individual development officers’ fundraising activity and performance
impacted their motivation to achieve their goals. One participant with less than two years of
experience at Brandiam explained that donors were being successfully moved through the
fundraising cycle, but the raw data in the system did not reflect these efforts. The participant
clarified, “I’m actually doing it [working through the phases of the fundraising process], but I’m
not really inputting it into Salesforce.” The development officer’s reason for not entering data
into Salesforce was that “there’s no value-add for me, quite frankly. It’s just administrative
time…and I feel like it doesn’t ever come up.” The development officer was not highly
motivated to input a lot of data into Salesforce because the organization’s cultural models and
cultural settings did not have a high expectation for development officers to enter as much data
as possible that could be valuable for strengthening relationships with donors. Another
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development officer with nearly three years of experience at Brandiam made a similar comment
about putting effort toward the source of data that would be used in evaluating performance. The
participant provided the following perspective about performance evaluations: “If it's based on
individual performance, then you just have to make sure you put things into Salesforce, and I’m
pretty lazy about that because it didn't matter.” Since the monthly fundraising reports were
based on data in Salesforce but were not emphasized during performance evaluations with
managers at Brandiam, the participant did not expend much effort on entering data into
Salesforce.
The interview data indicated that the reports included rankings of development officers
based on their fundraising activity for the month. Interview participants stated that the data in
the monthly reports were not discussed in any group settings at Brandiam, however, the social
comparison led to a more competitive environment for development officers. An interview
participant with more than eight years of experience stated, “We see our ranks across the
university compared to our peers on a spreadsheet,” and disclosed that the concept of “success
changed in the last few years.” She believed that development officers at the institution now had
increased pressure to close more gifts because of the “new reports that they send out across the
university ranking all the fundraisers’ activity.” She explained a perceived emphasis on dollars
raised and said, “Our bottom line…[is] what we are probably the most measured on right now in
the university context.” She thought that development officers’ increased sense of pressure to
perform was “more internal…than formally external,” but was largely driven by the monthly
reports. She stated, “If you're being flat out compared to your peers, I think sometimes that is a
little bit at odds with the concept of philanthropy.” A different development officer mentioned
that her position in the middle of the rankings helped her avoid conversations with her manager
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about her performance. Her degree of motivation and level of performance were influenced by
the factors on which she thought she might be evaluated. She stated, “I've held right at the
middle…and I've gotten [near the top] in each category a few times so, to me, that's good
enough. I’m typically above many fundraisers on our team and…I'm never in tough water.”
The overt rankings of fundraising performance by individuals against their peers fostered
an environment that was competitive and individualistic. The lack of attention that managers
and development officers paid to the monthly reports left development officers to depend on
their own levels of motivation about whether to work on improving their performance. Despite
not having heard anyone suggest to her how to use the reports, a participant with less than one
year of tenure at Brandiam guessed that colleagues might use the reports as a way to track and
motivate their own performance. She stated, “We get these monthly reports about rankings.…
It’s not really discussed…. My sense is that people use it for their own purpose—to motivate
themselves, or to see where they stand, or where they need to improve.” However, interview
participants did not mention having observed any modeling of this behavior at Brandiam. A
participant with two years of fundraising experience at Brandiam specifically commented on
how the reports helped her compare and evaluate her individual performance over time. She
attributed herself as the source of her motivation to improve. She said, “That’s definitely just my
motivation. I am not competitive to beat other people. I’m competitive to beat myself—that is
what drives me.… I want to do better each year.” Employees are generally more receptive to
feedback when performance evaluations use temporal comparison of one’s own performance
over time rather than social comparison evaluations (Chun, Bockner, & De Cremer, 2018).
Finding summary. Interview data suggested that development officers at Brandiam did
not highly value entering data in Salesforce beyond the minimal points that were heavily
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weighted in the monthly reports and those that were occasionally acknowledged by their
managers, such as the number of substantive contacts. Development officers generally were not
motivated or incentivized to record information into Salesforce beyond the few data points that
were used in the institution’s monthly reports of fundraising activity. As expressed in comments
heard from two interview participants, the data found that all development officers were not
motivated to expend effort to track their fundraising activity even at a minimal level because
they did not value these tasks as being relevant to achieving their performance goal. Although
development officers generally had declarative knowledge about the importance of entering data
into Salesforce, they had little motivation to perform tasks that were not brought up for
discussion by team leaders and were seemingly not highly valued by the organization.
Research Question 2 Findings: The Interaction Between Organizational Culture and
Context and Development Officers’ Knowledge and Motivation
The cultural models of an organization are often invisible and include the adopted beliefs
and norms of its members (Gallimore & Goldenberg, 2001). The cultural settings of an
organization include the structures, policies, and visible manifestations of the values and
activities of the people within the site (Gallimore & Goldenberg, 2001; Rueda, 2011). This study
aimed to examine the cultural models and cultural settings of an organization that interact with
development officers’ knowledge and motivation to raise $100 million, as a unit, by July 2022.
Finding 7: Development officers felt supported by an organizational culture that
was aligned with their preferred style of self-directed work, although many recognized the
remaining needs to improve performance with more structured onboarding, guidance, and
feedback. Development officers were well aware of their overall fundraising goal, as a unit, to
raise $100 million by July 2022 and the value for the organization to enhance capacity and
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retention of high performing development officers. All 11 development officers clearly and
consistently stated the overall fundraising goal and separately discussed similar perceptions
about the reasons for and benefits of retaining development officers. Two interview participants
used the word “autonomy,” four participants mentioned “flexibility,” and ten interview
participants made multiple comments about the “freedom” that the department’s leadership
provides them, especially in relation to development officers being able to manage their
respective daily work. One participant stated, “I don’t feel like I have to go at a breakneck
pace.… I like that.… I like the long-term look…so I feel a deep sense of privilege and
responsibility here.” Another participant, who appreciated the “flexibility” of the work
environment, said, “The ownership you have over your schedule…was amazingly refreshing.…
You could disappear for a week…and life goes on.” Another development officer recognized
that Brandiam’s culture offered benefits beyond traditional compensation and reflected, “I do
think we have it good.” Although one development officer suggested that Brandiam could
become more efficient in fundraising by developing a culture of having a “more structured
approach,” this individual thought that a more “regimented” culture would be a major shift in
Brandiam’s culture that would likely be unwelcome by many of the existing development
officers because “we all have our own styles…some are super regimented…some are more last
minute.” Development officers felt supported to use their own workstyle because of the
entrepreneurial culture of Brandiam. The development officer said, “It's a fine balance. I love
the freedom and having the structure would be nice. All the same, I love the freedom.” Another
development officer said, “I like the [Brandiam] culture with the autonomy and the freedom to
be more creative because that's the kind of fundraiser I am. I like to be creative and do my thing
and not be micromanaged.”
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Responses from five participants suggested that “good” hiring had been instrumental to
developing and sustaining the self-motivated driven culture at Brandiam. A participant with two
years of fundraising experience at Brandiam commented, “There was no onboarding or training.
Zero.” However, she suggested that the team leader “hires people who can step in and go, so I
think her hiring style has been…[with] her expectation…that you can figure it out.” A
development officer with more than four years of experience at Brandiam believed that the
culture at Brandiam had developed with a track record of hiring by “a savvy manager, who first
would hire well for people that were self-motivated and that were able to do this job without
being babysat.” She suggested that hiring employees who “fit” with Brandiam’s culture would
ultimately improve retention. She reflected on a series of hires over the past three years and
stated, “I think we’ve done a really good job of hiring, and I think that we'll see some continued
progress and longevity [of development officers].”
Development officers at Brandiam made several comments during their interviews that
expressed their belief that the autonomy their organization afforded them in their work was a
major factor in their job satisfaction and retention. An interview participant’s advice for the
organization’s managers was to continue to “hire well, hire responsible people that are mature,
and let them do their jobs…[because not] one person wants someone breathing down their neck.”
A development officer with less than a year of fundraising experience at Brandiam shared a
similar sentiment and said, “I think freedom is really helpful because I’m just that kind of
worker. I never have liked to be micromanaged…and don't need a lot of time with my leader or
boss ever.” Although some people mentioned wanting more specific feedback and attention
from their manager, six development officers admitted to not wanting any oversight because they
each, ultimately, most valued their “freedom.” A participant said, “You kind of want to know
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that someone's paying attention to what you're doing day in and day out, and there's not really a
lot of that…. At the same time, I would never want to be micromanaged.” A development
officer who had been at Brandiam for less than a year appreciated the organization’s culture of
self-management and said, “We’re expected to properly manage our own time, which is really
refreshing in this type of work [in which] you’re out in the field,…[or] reading up on things.…
Being allowed to manage your time responsibly is really wonderful.”
In addition to having flexibility in their schedules, development officers had autonomy
with their activities. One development officer shared how she enjoyed the freedom at Brandiam
because it gave her the opportunity to engage in varied work that ranged from using “a little bit
of creativity with invitations and things” to “meeting new people and the ability to travel…and
organize the day.” For her, the autonomous environment at Brandiam resulted in “every day
never being the same.” Another development officer stated, “We're given a lot of independence
and freedom and ability to do what you need to do to be successful.” A comment made by a
development officer with a tenure of more than eight years at Brandiam about the self-managed
culture of the organization concurred with statements from other development officers. She
stated, “It’s really important to…let them be entrepreneurial and to let them create their own
style and to give them the tools and ability to do that without micromanaging.” Another
participant described how the autonomous culture at Brandiam positively contributed to the
retention of development officers. The development officer stated, “The oversight that I've had
from my manager has been very little, and that's probably what made me stay. I'm very much in
charge of how I want to do my own work.”
Finding summary. The data suggested that development officers believed they had
adequate knowledge and motivation to reach collective fundraising goal and their performance
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was supported by Brandiam’s leadership that fostered a culture of a “more hands-off
management style,” as described by one interview participant. Comments like that and others
previously mentioned further supported the notion that it was important to hire people who were
aligned with the culture and values of the organization. A development officer summarized her
belief that was similarly voiced by others in their separate interviews for this study. She said, “If
you have people who are motivated by that really pure idea of fundraising, I think that this kind
of place manages itself.” The findings from interview participants suggested that hiring people
who fit the cultural models and cultural settings of the organization was a key element in
development officers’ success and retention.
Finding 8: Development officers worked within a setting that provided a broadly
positive environment but did not provide them with specific and constructive feedback
about their performance. Although development officers generally felt supported by the
autonomous culture at Brandiam, the cultural models and cultural settings impacted how
development officers interacted with their supervisors and whether they received feedback about
their performance. When asked if they were given any tips or advice on how to improve their
fundraising performance at Brandiam, the predominant answer was “no” followed by a couple
responses of “not at all” and “not really.” Nine of the 11 development officers mentioned not
having received any specific constructive feedback about their performance. The findings
revealed that there was a gap in development officers’ ability to assess their performance, at least
in part because specific feedback and concrete suggestions were not given to them about how to
evaluate or improve their performance. One development officer believed that updating a
manager about work activities would be a waste of time for them both and stated, “This is what
she wants.… I don't have to tell her anything. I don't care one way or another to share this or
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that, [and] she's not interested.” Another development officer spoke about the lack of
encouragement for development officers to engage in reflection or to ask for constructive
feedback about their performance. This individual commented, “I would say it's not
welcome…we're all really busy. My supervisor also has her own work to do and so there's just
not a lot of time.” When asked if individuals proactively sought feedback or suggestions from a
supervisor about areas in which they could improve, one participant admitted, “The less we’re
proactive about talking about things, they [areas of improvement] can be slid under the carpet
easily.” A development officer with more than a year of experience at Brandiam described the
performance evaluation process as “important in terms of accountability and goal equitability,
but…ultimately, not useful because…[the feedback depends on] the nature of the managers…it's
still kind of murky [in practice].” This participant was considered “relatively new” and
periodically asked a manger, “How am I doing?” Although the development officer was not
given any specific advice to those questions, the individual was reassured by a manager and
described feeling each time that “I should be okay.” A development officer with a tenure of
more than two years suggested that the types of suggestions she received from her manager were
“broad things but not real things.” She indicated that performance evaluations would include
comments from her manager such as, “Do better about entering your content reports,” however,
her manager would immediately follow with a qualifying statement that discounted the value of
her original request. She stated that her manager would tell her, “But I know you had the visits
you were supposed to have so, yeah, I get it,” and the development officer indicated that there
were no negative consequences for not tracking her contact reports in Salesforce. The
development officer interpreted her manager’s philosophy as: “It would have looked cool if you
had done it, but since you didn't, it's okay,” which led the participant to not highly value her
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goals and, instead, she concluded that “none of it matters.” Nevertheless, a repeated theme in the
findings from interviewing development officers was that they wanted specific feedback to
improve their performance. One development officer summarized this by saying, “Your
manager lets you just do your job.… That's probably why I’ve worked so happily at my job for
so long, but, at the same time, it would be nice if to hear one thing [to improve upon].”
Development officers needed to work in an organization that encouraged thorough
performance evaluations. Four development officers admitted to not being proactive about
seeking constructive criticism and honest feedback. One participant stated, “I seek out feedback
on areas, for sure, where I feel I'm doing really well…but I'm very open to feedback. I do find it
helpful and I believe in giving feedback and receiving feedback.” A development officer with a
tenure of five years stated, “I think that every single time that a manager is tasked with finding
an opportunity to improve, you should always find that.” The four development officers also
mentioned that they appreciated when their individual successes were acknowledged, especially
when they were recognized by their manager. One participant described how the team leader
communicated that she was “really proud…of everything that everyone's done, and she found
something about everyone on our team to compliment.” A different development officer
provided another example of a time when people were complimented on their performance at the
end of the year. The participant recounted that her manager said, “‘I'm so proud to have seven
people (or something, I don't remember what the number was) in the top 20 fundraisers [out of
nearly 200 fundraisers at the institution],’ and that was really quite impressive.” She appreciated
that her manager recognized the collective contributions of development officers at Brandiam
and said, “We really showed well as a team,” which she perceived as positively motivating and
the comment made her feel more confident about her colleagues.
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Performance evaluations were opportunities to positively acknowledge and motivate
development officers’ work. When asked about past experiences and the usefulness of
performance evaluations, one participant commented, “From a management perspective, I think
they're very useful. From a fundraiser’s perspective, it's really nice to get feedback and it's nice
to feel appreciated…[when] a manager uses them as an opportunity to praise my performance.”
Another development officer shared that her manager has been “nothing but encouraging,
and…at the end of the day, I think it makes me work harder.” One interview participant shared
that performance evaluations provided a focused amount of time for her to have broad
professional discussions with her manager and gave her an “opportunity to kind of strategize and
kind of grow.” She described the evaluation process at Brandiam as “much more feedback
driven” compared to her past experiences working in other organizations. She said, “I feel like
my boss actually cares for what I want to do, whether it’s in fundraising or not in fundraising,
and she's open to a lot of feedback, so I find [Brandiam’s] evaluation [process] very helpful.”
Although she appreciated that her supervisor gave her a holistic performance review beyond only
the “fundraising part” of total dollars raised from donors and made her “feel like a strong,
valuable team member,” she said, “Sometimes I feel like I would like the ability to receive
helpful feedback.” She explained that it would be helpful to be given feedback about how to
improve her fundraising skills. Development officers were motivated with a culture of feeling
supported, however, their performance could improve with honest evaluation and feedback. One
interview participant’s comment pointed to the motivation influence of an organization’s
attention on what outcomes, if any, were valued when evaluating performance and providing
feedback. The individual stated, “It’s really helpful to feel like you have a boss who is always
willing to be understanding, but part of me is like, ‘What would happen if my boss lit more of a
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fire?’” This statement was a further indication of how organizational culture influences
development officer’s motivation and performance.
Development officers at Brandiam were generally grateful for the positive praise they
received, however, the findings highlighted the gap of their not receiving specific feedback.
Interview data collected from development officers reflected their interest in receiving
constructive feedback. However, a development officer shared that feedback from Brandiam’s
mangers were “never very specific; it's like, ‘Oh, you had a great year,’” and similar sentiments
about the lack of specificity were heard from other interview participants. The individual added,
“I actually would have liked to get more feedback about ideas for growth but have never really
gotten much of that. But I always appreciate the praise and recognition of my performance.” A
development officer with a tenure of more than five years described the extent of the feedback
she received as having been given ratings of “3 or 4” out of 5 points on an annual performance
evaluation. She considered that to be an indication of a positive review of her performance
because she said, “Some people were getting less—1.5s and 2s—so I guess that was some
indication that you were doing okay. It was nice to hear your manager tell you that they felt that
you were doing all the right things.”
Although nine development officers mentioned having received positive comments from
their supervisors about their performance and the remaining two interview participants had not
received any feedback from a recent supervisor, three development officers explicitly stated that
praise was likely the result of their meeting at least one of the performance metrics of their role.
One participant observed, “I meet the metric in the goal. I don't think a lot of attention is paid to
my performance. Period.” Another development officer shared a possible rationale for a
manager not providing feedback to everyone. The rationale was that the manager’s time and
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effort for development officers may have needed to be reserved for those who were
underperforming or, as she stated, “Maybe for folks that do need more management or guidance
to meet their goal—that's where her time has to go.” Despite this conjecture, none of the
development officers interviewed for this study indicated that they were given specific
instructions or guidance on how to improve their performance.
Development officers wanted to feel supported by a culture that provides them with
specific feedback and timely suggestions on how to improve their performance. One
development officer wanted a manager to provide suggestions about strategy and possible
approaches for working with donors. She suggested that her manager could have said, “‘Why
don't we try this new approach?’ or not.” Another participant made a similar comment. She
explained that immediate feedback from her manager would have been particularly effective
after her manager had witnessed her interactions with donors. The development officer believed
she would have benefited if her supervisor had provided her with “feedback on how I'm doing
right then.” She was eager to receive any feedback, positive or constructive, that would indicate
how she was doing as a fundraiser and whether she was engaged in efforts that were valued by
the organization. She wanted to hear a manager tell her, “’Say something else,’…or ‘You
definitely identified and qualified this person well,’ or ‘That was a great calm cultivation
conversation…’ or ‘I need you on a different step.’” A development officer with nearly two
years of experience at Brandiam reflected on how she might be able to evaluate her own
performance as a fundraiser. She considered whether she could identify opportunities for
improvement by debriefing with colleagues after working together on a jointly closed gift. She
suggested that comments from peers would provide her with valuable information about her
performance. She wanted to gather feedback from peers on topics such as, “‘Was there anything
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else I could have done? Did I shoot too low or too high? Did my fear inhibit me?’” She
asserted, “Organic feedback from colleagues…would be more helpful [than feedback solely from
a manager] to speak to how I’m doing as a fundraiser.” She indicated that comments from a
colleague who had been involved in the fundraising cycle with her and had firsthand
observations of her interactions with donors would have provided timely, constructive, and
valued feedback that would have been helpful for her professional development.
Finding summary. Findings from 11 interviews suggested that fundraising performance
could be improved if development officers received specific and constructive feedback.
Development officers had knowledge about a general fundraising process and were confident
about their ability to achieve their fundraising goal. However, development officers were not
supported by a culture that provided them with honest evaluation and constructive feedback
about their performance. This gap as an organizational influence interacted with development
officers’ knowledge and motivation to evaluate, feel confident in, and improve their fundraising
skills. Development officers wanted to feel supported with a culture that provided feedback for
them to highly value their goals to efficiently fundraise philanthropic gifts, reach the collective
goal to raise $100 million by July 2022, and for the organization to, ultimately, enhance capacity
and retention of development officers and achieve further success in fundraising.
Finding 9: The organization was not proactive about providing role models for
fundraising and was not intentional about providing forums for strategic collaboration and
knowledge exchange amongst development officers. Development officers at Brandiam
operated in a setting in which peer-to-peer discussion and collaboration were broadly encouraged
but not reinforced, modeled, or rewarded. Fundraising was described by two interview
participants as “siloed” work. Brandiam’s culture supported autonomy and individual efforts
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from development officers. Nevertheless, 10 of the 11 interview participants expressed an
interest for more internal collaboration to share ideas, learn, and improve. Ten participants
indicated they had learned about some aspect of fundraising from colleagues. One development
officer said, “I'm really trying to learn as much as I can from colleagues, and from the deans on
what priorities are for our school,…and from all my other colleagues, like things that worked for
them.” Another interview participant stated, “I like collaboration and find that I have incredibly
bright, really good colleagues. I can bounce things often and they are there to jump up to
help…and feel that I could ask almost any of you anything.” The participant later related her
preferred workstyle of talking through situations with others. She said, “I work best in
collaboration. I’m an extrovert, right? So, we talk, we figure things out, we talk some more,
[and] that is the best process for me.” Another participant stated that although “there's not one
person I don't feel like I cannot talk to,…it's just [that] they’re not here, so that's not as regular.”
One interview participant stated interactions that promoted learning amongst colleagues were
“pretty much random.… We have sort of only have our key people that we share with.” When
asked about the collaboration that took place at Brandiam, a participant said, “It might be a warm
intro here and there. Does it happen in meetings? I would say, ‘No.’”
Six participants made comments about wanting colleagues to share how they worked
through challenging situations and achieved success. One development officer said, “What I’d
love [for us] to share is: what was the strategy?” She suggested that more time could be spent on
knowledge exchange and “some sharing of: how did you do it? To me, that should be what
should be discussed about a gift. How can we use that to understand how to help everyone get
their $10 million gift?” Another development officer wanted colleagues to discuss context-
specific topics, such as overcoming objections from donors, but did not feel supported by
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cultural settings and cultural models that set aside time for open discussion. The development
officer with nearly three years of fundraising at Brandiam mentioned, “I brought it up in a staff
meeting…but we got sidetracked like we always do.” She suggested that if development officers
had “a template,” or a job aid, then they would “be better prepared…to [address] the
objection…and have done it right then and…cut the process a little shorter.” A development
officer who similarly wanted to collaborate more often with colleagues at Brandiam around
fundraising strategies said, “It’s kind of tough because of our schedules.” A development officer
with more than one year of experience at Brandiam mentioned wanting to have much more
collaboration and commented, “There is collaboration, but it is incredibly limited.” Another
development officer revealed, “Our office doesn't come together much. I’m a really independent
worker, so I like finding things out sometimes by myself and learning by asking questions, but I
wouldn't say our team does collaborate much.” One development officer wondered whether
Brandiam had “that kind of environment [for people to feel comfortable enough] to just ask
questions [and] not necessarily be seen as a weakling.” She was not confident that the
organization had a culture in which everyone felt comfortable enough to ask questions and risk
being vulnerable to admit when they did not know something.
Interview participants indicated that Brandiam did not have established practices for
knowledge exchange within the organization. Brandiam’s cultural models did not include
organized time for collaboration. The participant indicated, “It’s kind of up to you,…[and] it has
to be driven by the party members.” A development officer offered a possible explanation for
why development officers at Brandiam largely prioritized spending their time with donors rather
than spending time to learn from and collaborate with colleagues. The participant suggested that
collaboration with colleagues “might be [seen as] hindering the time spent from…developing a
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deeper relationship with a donor.” To this participant, donors were considered to be more
relevant and valuable to development officers because donors directly contribute philanthropic
gifts that help to achieve the fundraising goals.
Development officers worked in a setting that supported their taking time to engage in
collaboration and professional development to improve their performance, however, it did not
often happen in practice. One manager mentioned, “We've encouraged fundraisers to strategize
even one-on-one with each other, so [there could be] lots of collaboration and teamwork, and we
have some really seasoned fundraisers here. We're really lucky to rely on their experience.” The
organization’s leadership generally allowed development officers to have autonomy over their
daily activities. Development officers had freedom in their work and did not feel under constant
pressure to close gifts on a daily basis, yet they rarely spent time on activities to evaluate and
improve their performance. A team leader believed that the organizational culture encouraged
collaboration and stated, “I’m providing them with the opportunity. I don’t know if they’re
taking advantage of it as much as they could, [but] I continually try to encourage it.” Although
interview participants suggested that the organization allowed time for colleagues to engage in
knowledge exchange, none of the development officers interviewed for this study indicated that
their organization was proactive about having a structure or setting to accomplish this. Except
for one participant who mentioned that a manager suggested she consult another colleague about
a tool to consider using to improve her efforts in the identification and qualification phases,
development officers were not informed about specific role models who had successfully worked
through the fundraising cycle or would welcome being engaged in strategic collaboration with
colleagues. Furthermore, development officers were not given concrete steps to follow or a
structured method to easily share information with one another.
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The interview data indicated that development officers expressed interest in wanting to
improve their performance, however, they did not know how to evaluate their own skills and did
not feel supported by the organization to prioritize performance improvements. When asked
questions about the types of training and approaches they wanted to use to improve their
performance, some participants offered ideas for increased collaboration and learning. An
interview participant with nearly three years of fundraising experience at Brandiam suggested
that development officers use the monthly fundraising activity reports “to see which peers are
doing well…[and] identify who you want to learn from.” An interview participant with a tenure
of five years described a positive learning experience that she had at Brandiam. She spent her
first summer as a development officer “pretty much shadowing…a high achieving gift officer
here and also my colleague.” She commented that she wanted more experiences like that
because she said, “I felt that I could learn a lot from them, and it would be better than any
professional development sessions that I could take or be sent to.”
Interview participants wanted role models and to learn from their peers. When asked
whether there were people that participants regularly counseled when needing guidance or advice
on a case, the same set of four colleagues within Brandiam were named on multiple occasions by
the interview participants. Three of these helpful colleagues had tenures of more than four years
at Brandiam. These four colleagues were each highlighted as having been helpful when they
encountered challenges in their work. In contrast, a development officer with a tenure of two
years indicated that she had not been allowed or encouraged to shadow one of these colleagues.
Although she had expressed an interest in learning firsthand from a high performing colleague,
the interview participant stated, “I’ve never been able to work with her. I’d love to hear what
they’re doing,” but she had not been given the opportunity to do so. She recognized these
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opportunity losses and stated, “You might miss out on learning from somebody within your own
organization who’s doing things remarkably well.”
A review of fundraiser training programs found that one out of the 18 workshops offered
by the institution indicated that an interactive session would take place for participants to learn
from and discuss current real-life cases with their peers. The workshop’s description encouraged
participants to “be prepared to discuss a prospect currently in cultivation within their portfolio.”
However, interview participants indicated that they were not required to participate in this or any
other fundraising workshops at the institution. One development officer shared an instance of
when she took initiative to try to improve her fundraising skills. She read through donor records
because she wanted to learn how development officers had successfully closed a $2.5-million
gift from a donor whose prior giving was a series of small gifts over several years. She
recognized this case as “a brilliant study in cultivation that was documented in contact records.”
Although her manager did not suggest this task, she realized that she could learn from other
people’s experiences. Her initiative to engage in her own learning prompted her to more highly
value the cultivation phase and increased her degree of self-efficacy that she could achieve
success by working with donors to make significantly meaningful gifts over time.
Finding summary. The findings revealed a gap in the organization’s cultural models and
cultural settings to support development officers improving their performance through strategic
forums that facilitated tailored discussions about fundraising challenges and best practices.
Brandiam lacked cultural settings, such as regular team meetings or individual meetings with
one’s supervisor, in which participants could expect to have time dedicated to conversations
about shared learning and improving their fundraising performance. Development officers
generally believed that the organizational culture provided them with adequate time to engage in
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professional development, however, they were not provided with role models and mentors on
which they could model desired behaviors in fundraising. Brandiam’s cultural models and
cultural settings did not indicate that knowledge sharing amongst colleagues was valuable.
Therefore, development officers did not prioritize collaboration and did not highly value
engaging in practices that would contribute to improving one another’s fundraising skills. This
remaining need in the organization hindered development officers’ performance to efficiently
achieve the collective goal of raising $100 million, as a unit, by July 2022.
Finding 10: The autonomous culture of the organization revealed a remaining need
for development officers to work in a setting that encouraged them to prioritize engaging in
reflection and improving their individual performance. Development officers at Brandiam
generally believed that the organization allowed them time to engage in professional
development, however, they were not motivated to prioritize engaging in reflection,
collaboration, and professional development. When asked about the organizational culture of
allowing time for reflection and professional development, one participant mentioned, “I think if
I wanted to seek counsel from my colleagues, I could.” However, the participant acknowledged
having “poor time management skills.” The individual further stated, “I waste time. I could be
more efficient.” This participant admitted to not seeking out ways to improve because of the
perception that efficiency was not valued by the organization and said, “Nothing gets changed
until it’s critical.” Development officers worked within a setting that lacked accountability for
individual performance and did not provide incentives to improve. These cultural models and
cultural settings influenced development officers’ decisions on how to spend their time.
The organization did not have a culture that proactively encouraged development officers
to reflect on their performance. One development officer initially stated, “I don't know what
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skills I need,” because she had never reflected on her performance nor considered which areas
were opportunities to improve her skills. She later mentioned wanting to learn financial
terminology and be better prepared to have more extensive conversations with knowledgeable
donors. One of the three participants who mentioned wanting to learn more about the school
stated, “I just want to be as knowledgeable as possible when I'm talking to all these families and
especially those who have a history with the school.”
Ten development officers expressed comments that indicated a belief that everyone had
potential to improve their knowledge and skills. One development officer stated the belief that
everyone can improve, however, she had not seen evidence that development officers at
Brandiam make observable efforts to improve their performance. She indicated that she thought
there was an implicit reluctance across the organization to engage in reflection. When she
described her performance check-in experience, a natural opportunity for employees to discuss
strengths and challenges with their managers, she said, “Nobody is perfect. Everybody has room
to grow. There's just never a lot of opportunity to reflect on that and not really any appetite for
it. It's like, ‘Another super year. Great job. We're really proud of you.’” In addition to the
university having recently begun to provide more tools and reports to better track fundraising
performance, the Brandiam School adopted a new performance evaluation process called “check-
ins” two years ago. A development officer with more than five years of fundraising at Brandiam
shared, “Now, they do check-ins, which are much more informal, and I appreciate that more than
an annual performance review, which doesn't really affect very much your daily work life.” She
explained that check-in meetings were held three or four times during the year, which suggested
that opportunities for formative assessment were part of Brandiam’s cultural setting. The
application of formative assessments to the field of fundraising was aligned with Nagaraj et al.’s
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(2015) suggestion for development officers to have frequent conversations with their supervisors
about performance because they provide development officers with opportunities to adjust their
behavior throughout the year. Although she did not receive feedback about her past
performance, the development officer explained that quarterly check-ins had been helpful to her
performance because they prompted her to think more proactively about her future work. She
said, “My manager and I will look at: ‘What are things you're doing the next three months?’
[and] ‘Tell me where you want to move the needle.’ [Since] planning is not my forte,…short-
term check-ins work for me.” However, interview participants wanted to see the organizational
culture improve by providing development officers with specific feedback. One participant
stated, “Everybody can improve and…if we work to improve some aspect of that process [at
Brandiam],…it would be more in that vein of reflection and constructive ideas for growth.” A
development officer who received broad suggestions from a manager asserted that the advice
was generic and stated, “We’ll say the same things like: ‘Make time for your portfolio’ [and]
‘collaborate with colleagues.’ We know what we have to do.... There’s a genuine desire,
but…unpacking them and finding the time [to do them is] pretty hard.” The participant did not
know how to implement any of the given broad suggestions she was given. Furthermore, she did
not feel that the organization provided sufficient time for development officers to incorporate
new activities, such as working differently or learning new approaches, in order for development
officers to improve their performance.
Finding summary. Findings from the interview data and document review suggested
that the organization did not actively and specifically provide development officers with
techniques to reflect on their fundraising skills. Although development officers generally
believed they had adequate time to engage in professional development, they were not given
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tools and techniques to evaluate their fundraising skills to improve their performance. The
organization did not have extrinsic rewards established for development officers to participate in
professional development. Furthermore, development officers who did not participate in any
formal professional development opportunities indicated that they had not experienced any overt
negative consequences in the feedback they received from their managers nor were they
penalized in their performance evaluations. Although development officers operated in a setting
in which discussion and collaboration were not discouraged, performance improvements through
professional development were not explicitly encouraged and development officers were not
rewarded by the organization for participating in them. Without cultural models and cultural
settings that indicated an importance for improving performance, development officers did not
highly value engaging in practices to evaluate their strengths and challenges in order to improve
their performance and more effectively achieve their fundraising goals.
Finding 11: Development officers did not feel supported with a culture that offered
training sessions that were of high value to them. After comparing the 11 interview responses
to the question about what topic of training would be of highest interest to each participant and
the data collected from my review of the fundraiser training website, the findings indicated that
Brandiam’s development officers did not highly value the subject areas that were currently
offered as training workshops by the institution. Development officers were generally reluctant
to attend any workshops because they were thought to be “so basic,” as one participant stated
and was a similar sentiment heard from six other interview participants. Another participant
said, “I don't necessarily need to learn phases of fundraising anymore, although I really
appreciated those kinds of trainings earlier in my career.” One development officer discounted
the usefulness of training workshops and stated, “Professional development and those kinds of
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things, I think, are great, but I am at a stage in my life…I mean, I have experience.” This
individual was relieved that her manager had never told her, “You really should go do
something.” One of the longer tenured development officers suggested that it was important for
development officers to have “refreshers [about]…the basics,” such as “reminders of things to
listen for or ask about” while cultivating a relationship with donors. She commented that
“reminding yourself of other ways to get information or connect with people more fully” would
help development officers to avoid becoming “intellectually lazy” from the routine of going on
“30 meetings a month for five years,…[and naturally] fall[ing] into a rhythm” of using a stagnant
set of practices and approaches. She indicated that trainings would be helpful for development
officers to become more innovative and learn new techniques, such as “a way to reinvigorate or
motivate myself to look at my portfolio in a different way.”
Ten of the 11 development officers expressed interest in improving their performance if
there were workshops tailored to their professional needs. One development officer stated, “I’ve
been kind of busy,” and made comments that indicated she did not want to acquire information
for the sake of gaining new knowledge. She indicated that she would only want to “take some
time [for professional development] if that would help me and not just be another sinkhole of
your putting stuff in.” Another development officer highlighted that the need for professional
development “depends on the background of each individual” and their experience in
fundraising. She said that when she was new she “needed more of the soup-to-nuts kind of
layout of major gift fundraising…and picking up on the terms.” However, she suggested that it
might be helpful for a development officer with more experience to engage in trainings that
would involve “fine-tuning their skillset or having an opportunity, perhaps, to roleplay different
scenarios and be put on the spot and kind of practice.” Another individual wanted opportunities
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“to get together with fundraisers just to bounce off ideas and…[discuss] strategies…and
situations,” to collaborate, get new ideas, and learn from colleagues.
Development officers at Brandiam predominantly expressed interest in improving their
skills to cultivate and solicit donors. A development officer with more than one year of
experience at Brandiam wanted to learn how to improve solicitation skills and “how to work a
portfolio…efficiently.” Another participant suggested that “sophisticated sales training” could
be helpful to improving her fundraising performance. She indicated that transferable techniques
used in sales might improve development officers’ procedural knowledge and practical skills for
philanthropic fundraising. However, the document review indicated that the institution did not
explicitly offer this type of training. One individual mentioned, “I…have this dread that I would
under ask because I wouldn't know what to look for.” Much of her lack of self-efficacy in this
area could be addressed by improving the skills she would use in the qualification phase of the
fundraising cycle. Another development officer described wanting to become more
technologically savvy and stated, “I could benefit from learning how to use some of the other
tools.”
Three participants wanted to learn more about gift planning for philanthropic fundraising.
One of these participants said she thought that gift planning would be a popular workshop for
development officers “because it is a little bit more complicated.” She described gift planning as
a fundraising area that development officers typically do not focus on learning because she said,
“We have the support from the university [and] we pull them in when we need it so we don't
have to do it ourselves.” Another individual expressed interest in becoming “more financial[ly]
savvy,” although colleagues with gift planning expertise were readily available to consult with
frontline development officers and donors when called upon. She said, “I know I wouldn't have
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to do it alone and gift planning would be there,” to assist her with these conversations with
donors, however, she acknowledged a knowledge gap in this area of fundraising. Development
officers with extensive knowledge about fundraising, including gift planning and a variety of
giving vehicles, such as deferred giving with bequests and charitable remainder trusts, would be
better prepared and feel more efficacious to have deep discussions with donors about how to
support the institution than development officers without a similar level of knowledge and skills.
Finding summary. An organizational culture that facilitates development officers to gain
increased knowledge and motivation would support their likelihood to achieve fundraising
success more efficiently. Data indicated that 10 of the 11 interview participants verbally stated
some interest in participating in training and learning sessions if they were tailored to their
professional needs. The current lack of such learning programs is a remaining gap in the
organization that has the potential to have a valuable impact on improving development officers’
performance and retention.
Finding 12: Development officers felt supported working within a setting that
valued long-term relationships, and their performance was not largely driven by
expectations of anticipated increases in financial compensation. Brandiam’s cultural settings
and cultural models supported development officers engaging donors in context-specific
fundraising that was motivated by philanthropic activity rather than by high pressure short-term
transactional sales. A participant with more than two years of experience at Brandiam shared her
appreciation for the cultural fit of Brandiam’s advancement department. She explained that
Brandiam’s cultural norms about fundraising contrasted those of the broader institution’s central
advancement organization. She stated, “The development culture here [at Brandiam] is really
different, but it is, I think, relationship oriented,” whereas, “I think there was a lot of pressure
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[from Central] for transactional giving, and so I feel lucky that I came at the right time when we
were almost at that first big goal.” An interview participant shared that the institutional culture
over the past year was one in which some development officers across the institution scrambled
to record their contact notes in Salesforce in order to protect their claims on relationships with
donors in their portfolios and avoid the risk of losing donors to other development officers. This
high-pressure context motivated one development officer at Brandiam to be diligent about “just
putting everything in there [Salesforce]” because she “didn’t want people to get taken away”
from her portfolio. She described the organizational culture at Brandiam as one that had “more
of the style that I like, which is more relationship oriented and not feeling like you have to
execute this transaction, or else.”
Organizational culture influences what is valued by members in the organization.
Organizational culture influences which values are adopted by the members of the organization
(Gallimore & Goldenberg, 2001). Interview data suggested that Brandiam’s culture of valuing
development officers maintaining long-term relationships with donors was an asset to their
performance. Development officers at Brandiam were more likely to adopt this value and be
more motivated to stay with the organization than if the organization had prioritized short-term
results through transactional relationships. Many development officers mentioned that they
valued the relationships they had developed with donors and considered their work a success if
donors were happy. One interview participant described her motivation to work in fundraising
as being driven by her “love [for] people…and…higher education.” She stated that she felt
rewarded by the relationships she has been able to steward between donors and the school. She
commented, “If you match…big, innovative, special thinkers…with the right
opportunities,…you have these really rewarding relationships, and it feels really cool to be a part
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of that both from the university perspective and…on behalf of the donor.” She stated, “What
motivates me the most is…looking at…people that I know are in active cultivation…are
happy…and you can say,…‘This is a perfect fit for everybody and you’re gonna love what
you're supporting.’” Another participant mentioned, “I love that…you’re an ambassador for the
university,” and suggested that when development officers are genuinely passionate about the
cause for which they are fundraising, their positivity translates to donors and impacts their
willingness to make philanthropic gifts.
The predominant organizational value about goals at Brandiam was described earlier.
However, one development officer discussed a dissimilar experience that contrasted the
experiences described by other participants. Although eight of the 11 interview participants
described ways in which a manager encouraged them to unsystematically increase their initial
fundraising dollar goals, one development officer, who shared a manager with some of the other
participants, had a contrasting experience that influenced how she more valued her fundraising
goal and wanted to achieve it. This development officer learned from her manager that “a
typical year for a fundraiser is about a million [dollars], but that is not what she expects of
someone who is new to this role.” The development officer settled on a lower amount as her
fundraising goal. She recounted during the interview for this study that her manager reassured
her with the following message: “If you can raise that amount, that would be great. If you raise
less than that or more than that, that's okay, too.” This type of personalized input was found to
be a rare occurrence with development officers at Brandiam. The development officer
recognized that her manager considered the outcomes in the first year of a fundraising job to be
“really different than what she expects from someone that has all those relationships in place.”
Her experience of having received individualized attention and participate in collaborative goal-
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setting signaled to this new development officer that tenure was an asset for fundraising success.
She acknowledged that it was important for Brandiam to retain development officers, and she
was committed to staying in her role for a few years to learn and achieve success.
Salary and monetary rewards were not found to be primary drivers of retention for
development officers at Brandiam. Although three of the 11 interview participants mentioned
financial compensation as being one of the desired rewards for achieving performance goals, it
was not stated as a primary motivation for any of the development officers. A development
officer with one of the longer tenures at Brandiam said, “Making money is motivating but that's
probably not why people go into this.” However, another development officer reflected on her
transition from a career in commercial sales to her role in higher education fundraising. She
mentioned, “There is a disconnect here. I could work extremely hard, blow through every goal,
and I would still receive a 5% raise.… In academia, maybe you're cutting yourself off by not
rewarding somebody for a tremendous effort.”
Despite some of the seemingly related functions of a fundraising role and a commercial
sales position, such as meeting new people, convincing customers to buy into a concept or item,
and having a goal to contribute to the organization’s bottom line, Brandiam’s cultural models
and cultural settings were different from a traditional sales group. Three participants specifically
mentioned not wanting to see Brandiam’s advancement department adopt a sales model with its
traditional job priorities, pace, short-term focus, and pay-for-performance reward structure. One
development officer shared how he would not want a manager to give him a directive stating,
“This is your call deck.” He explained his reluctance to follow this type of order as follows,
“Then it becomes a traditional sales role where it’s all about pipeline and focus on the numbers
versus the relationships. I think [Brandiam] is really good with the relationship side.” Another
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development officer appreciated that Brandiam’s organizational context provided “so many
advantages” over a sales-focused organization. She mentioned the organizational culture of
autonomy and said, “It’s a much different atmosphere from pure sales, where you eat what you
kill.… [Here,] we have freedom…of being able to be…much more careful and thoughtful in this
process.… I don’t have unbeatable deadlines.”
Another development officer contrasted the organizational cultures between fundraising
for nonprofits and fundraising for higher education. He described how development officers at
well-established institutions like Brandiam have opportunities to be innovative, long-term
focused with donors, and flexible with their methods of payment, such as through multiyear
pledge agreements and deferred gifts, rather than be constrained by a critical sense of urgency to
focus on short-term needs and bringing in immediate gifts of cash. The cultural practices of
fundraising are specific to an institution (Cook & Lasher, 1996). The development officer with
more than a year of tenure at Brandiam explained that he had to adjust to Brandiam’s culture.
He said, “I’m still getting used to how we…just focus on a pledge.… We want to identify people
who can…make a gift…but also commit…to [large or long-term] proposals,” whereas, he
recognized that a “traditional [nonprofit’s focus] is [on] money in my next year to keep X
program alive, so I think we're fortunate in the sense that…our money is more proactive versus
reactive.”
Development officers valued intrinsic rewards and other factors beyond monetary
compensation. A development officer explained that she evaluated her success by asking
herself, “‘Do you like what you're doing? Are you happy at the end of every day for what you're
doing?’ And I…say, ‘Yes,’ every day.” Another development officer emphasized her belief that
the organizational culture should recognize the collective contributions of all colleagues across
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the department and said, “You celebrate an individual success, but it takes a village.” The
development officer also stated, “I want people [here] to all feel valued because if everyone feels
valued then the performance of your whole team will go up.” A participant with more than four
years of fundraising at Brandiam compared her fundraising job at Brandiam to prior roles in
other schools and revealed, “I really haven't been as happy in a job as I am now.… I was making
more money before…and that's kind of hard, but it's a work-life balance…and it's a kind of work
that is very rewarding.” Finally, another development officer mentioned that gatherings hosted
by the school brought staff and faculty together, commented how the school’s dean made people
feel special, indicated feeling supported by a “distinctive culture” at Brandiam, and stated, “I
think it's a pretty great place to work.”
Performance recognition and career progression were valued by development officers
but were remaining needs in the organizational culture. Although the culture at Brandiam was
aligned with many of the development officers’ intrinsic preference to have an autonomous
workstyle, extrinsic incentives, such as salary and career advancement, could not be ignored as
factors that impacted the motivation and performance of development officers. Interview
participants commented about the lack of alignment between performance, recognition, and
career advancement within Brandiam’s organizational culture. One participant with more than
five years of experience at Brandiam stated, “If I didn’t make my goal, I would still get a pay
increase. There’s a disconnect.” This individual implied that development officers received
little to no extrinsic rewards for achieving strong performance as fundraisers. A development
officer with more than five years of tenure at Brandiam made similar remarks and said,
“Generally, you would think somebody who's a really high performer would also be eventually
moving up the food chain.” She mentioned that she had asked her manager for concrete steps to
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demonstrate career progression, but she said, “That piece never came to fruition.” She suggested
that she and her colleagues were relegated to accept minor ways that above-average performance
could be recognized. For example, she described that the average percentage increase across the
school was 2.5% and said, “Merit increases are so pathetic here that if instead of a 2.5, you got a
3,…that's a win.” Another participant suggested that development officers at Brandiam simply
should not expect to receive any type of monetary reward for performance and said, “Your best
bet is job security, not pay increases.” A development officer with less than a year of
fundraising at Brandiam asserted, “Salary is helpful for sure—knowing that if you're doing a
good job you're rewarded accordingly, or at least you’ll have growth.… I could see if you don't
[receive that type of recognition] where frustrations happen with that.”
A development officer with a tenure of more than eight years spoke about an emerging
trend in the field of fundraising. Her comments reflected her observations that non-profits and
fundraising organizations were beginning to use more quantifiable metrics to guide how
development officers’ performance is “structured,…how fundraisers are measured,
and…basically, use metrics as a management tool like you would in sales.” However, this
development officer did not necessarily agree with this trend because she said, “It really, really,
really neglects a big piece of the donor centeredness that makes philanthropy so special.” This
emphasis on having a culture of philanthropy was in alignment with industry standards, such as
those of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, that do not allow development
officers to be paid on commission.
One interview participant acknowledged a noticeable disparity between salaries of
development officers at different schools within the institution. She stated, “We need to pay
market rate.… Development officers [at Brandiam] definitely get satisfaction out of the job and
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the job challenges, more than the salary, but it's still important to make sure we're paying what
the markets pay.” The interview data revealed that Brandiam’s advancement department leaders
did not have complete authority over salary decisions or financial rewards. A development
officer with managerial experience stated, “It’s a challenge to work with HR.… I think our
[school’s] HR looks at what other schools and units pay, but…it's not necessarily equal across
the board.” She further explained that other schools within the institution were “just known to
pay more.” Although financial compensation was not the most important form of reward for
development officers at Brandiam, the lack of opportunity for development officers to feel
acknowledged and rewarded in a myriad of ways that mattered to each of them was a gap as an
organizational influence that hindered their motivation and impacted their performance.
Finding summary. The interview data found that development officers felt supported by
a culture that was aligned with many factors that they intrinsically valued in a work environment,
including having autonomy and flexibility in their daily performance. They also acknowledged
their perceived cultural fit of development officers at Brandiam, which was described by
interview participants as an organization that more highly valued long-term relationships over
short-term transactional relationships with donors. However, the managers’ lack of decision-
making authority about extrinsic factors, such as salary and career progression, impacted
development officers’ motivation to continually be high performing. The organization’s lack of
recognition and rewards for development officers ultimately influenced their motivation,
performance, and intentions to stay or leave their advancement roles at Brandiam.
Finding 13: The institution’s formal measures of fundraising performance were not
aligned with the areas by which development officers were evaluated within their
organization. Although responses from 11 development officers indicated the existence of
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stated performance goals about the number of visits they had with donors and the total dollars
raised from donors, development officers at Brandiam had different ideas of how their managers
assessed their performance and how they evaluated their own success, some of which were
intangible and not measurable. An interview participant with a tenure of more than five years at
Brandiam was unclear about the extent, if any, that managers used the monthly fundraising
activity reports that were provided to development officers across the institution. Interview
responses indicated that the monthly reports were not a topic of discussion between development
officers and their managers. However, one participant assumed the reported metrics were
somehow factored into the evaluation process and stated, “Fundraisers get a report on how we
compare against our peers on our activity, so it's noticed by everyone, and I guess our reviews
are sort of based on it.”
The lack of clarity and lack of attention that managers spent with development officers
about achieving their individual fundraising dollar goals interacted with their motivation and
resulted in development officers not highly valuing their goals. One interview participant stated,
“When you have such tangible goals as you do in fundraising, it doesn't often match with [what
is discussed in] your performance review. It's just kind of you talk a lot.” Without detailed
conversations about accountability, one development officer stated that her measurement of
success is “if no one calls my dean and says they hate me.”
Development officers did not feel supported by an organizational culture that valued
their efforts. Four participants did not feel supported by an organization that highly valued their
efforts in fundraising. A development officer expressed “frustration” about the misalignment of
performance evaluations, metrics that were valued by the organization, and job responsibilities,
and three other development officers separately expressed similar sentiments in their interviews.
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Their perception was that only those development officers who spent most of their time on
closing gifts were the most highly valued employees across the organization. They felt
disadvantaged because they had not yet been at Brandiam long enough to have developed
relationships with many donors in the solicitation and closing phases, and their portfolios were
comprised mostly of people in the qualification and stewardship phases. Development officers
in this study each mentioned three quantifiable metrics: total amount of dollars raised as a goal,
an individual’s monthly number of substantive visits, and an individual’s ranking that was used
for social comparison across the institution. One development officer mentioned “dread[ing]”
seeing the monthly reports “because I know that I’ll be kind of on the bottom of the list…but I
think it’s okay. No one has fired me yet.” Three other development officers made similar
statements that indicated that they did not highly value their rankings and were not concerned
about them. One participant explained that her myriad job responsibilities prioritized her time to
be spent with donors in phases other than closing in the fundraising cycle. Her comments
indicated that her motivation was negatively impacted because metrics that were valued by the
organization were not aligned with the performance expectations set by her manager. She said,
“If I can only dedicate 1% of my time to closing, but closing is what we're judged on, that doesn't
feel good.… Everybody knows this [closing] is the only thing that matters.” She acknowledged
that building long-term relationships with “people who are going to give in five years because of
what I've done with cultivation” may result in future gifts to the school, however, she was
disappointed because her performance was “not judged on that.” She suggested that the
institution’s set of performance metrics for development officers was not highly valued at
Brandiam and was not relevant to her everyday work, which was mostly focused on stewardship.
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She said, “All the people who are having a great experience…doesn't matter…because the only
thing that's really counted is closing.”
Five development officers separately lamented about not being able to clearly track their
efforts to build relationships with donors with a long-term perspective. They each discussed
instances in which they were not recognized for working with high potential future major gift
donors—those who were not currently rated as having high wealth but were likely to make a
major gift to the institution in the future if they were financially able to do so. One of the
interview participants mentioned that she wished development officers could receive some type
of encouragement and recognition for working with “someone who's still pretty young but is
really going to be somebody soon.” She explained the importance of maintaining long-term
relationships with future donors and said, “You just want to keep them connected. You know the
value of the work they do, and you know they're playing an important part as well.” Another
development officer shared, “I’m a little frustrated that there’s not enough recognition for
contacts for non-major gift people.” Although the interview participants recognized the
importance of engaging high potential future major gift donors in long-term relationships with
the institution, the organization did not track these metrics, nor did these types of activities
garner attention by managers in performance evaluations. The lack of acknowledgement about
efforts to work with future donors signaled to development officers that working with certain
donors was not a priority and was not as valuable as working with current major gift donors. For
some development officers, these practices established an organizational culture of cognitive
dissonance between a field that values long-term relationships with donors but does not
explicitly reward development officers who proactively seek to initiate and strengthen
relationships with high potential future major gift donors. One development officer expressed
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concern about the organization not valuing the “next generation of wealth” and stated, “I think
that’s a fundamental mistake that we’re not investing more in those relationships…because these
kids are gonna really be the major gift people if they’re paid attention to.”
Development officers’ attention was primarily on Brandiam’s overall success in
fundraising as a collective organizational goal. Interview findings indicated that development
officers and their managers did not pay much attention to individual goals and performance. One
development officer described Brandiam’s advancement organization as “a supportive
environment,” and conceded that as long as the overall group “was getting credit for things, there
was no individual scrutiny, so I felt more relaxed.” When interview participants were asked for
their perspective on what primary metric was valued in the department, one participant
mentioned that the total dollars raised and total number of visits that development officers had
with donors were valued equally. However, another participant commented that the measures
varied depending on the individual’s role but, ultimately, the number of visits was the most
valued metric for development officers. Ten of the 11 development officers suggested that the
total dollars raised for the school was the sole most valued metric. One development officer
stated that the most valued metric was the “total dollar amount that everyone raised…overall,”
and another development officer separately explained the reason for that was because “the
bottom line is we're raising money for the school, and so bringing in big gifts…is always going
to be the thing that gets the most attention.” Similarly, another development officer stated, “It
does boil down to how much money you're raising at the end of the day; and the secondary is
definitely the metrics of the visit volume, but really it’s how much money you bring in it.” An
interview participant initially suggested that “it's both dollars and contacts,” however, she
subsequently rescinded that thought and asserted that only the bottom line of total dollars raised
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was valued by the institution and Brandiam’s advancement organization. She clarified by
stating, “No, it's just the money—period—for sure, no question about it; and the only reason they
value visits is because, generally speaking, the more people that you meet, the more money that
will come in.” A development officer with more than five years of tenure said that “large gifts”
were the only metric that was valued in the organization. Another development officer referred
to a large major gift that was raised by a colleague as an example of when their staff could
celebrate because it removed “a whole lot of pressure and allowed all of us to keep doing the
good work we’re doing.” A participant succinctly stated, “What that money is going toward
doesn't matter,” when she described her perception of the fundraising performance metric that
was valued by the organization and by what she and her colleagues were evaluated.
The findings from the data indicated that the formal measures of performance that were
included as metrics in the institution’s monthly fundraising activity reports were not explicitly
aligned with how development officers were evaluated by their managers during their routine
performance check-ins at Brandiam. The reports focused on monthly fundraising performance,
such as dollars raised through portfolios and substantive visits completed. However, participants
mentioned that they did not have the opportunity to adjust their goals or account for changes
throughout the year. Interview data from five participants suggested that the lack of
personalization in the monthly reports ignored fluctuations in factors beyond their control. These
factors included changes in development officers’ job responsibilities, donor portfolios, and
targeted regions due to departmental reorganization and turnover; changes in funding priorities
due to shifts in the organization’s senior leadership; changes in philanthropic giving behavior
that were influenced by macroeconomic and political conditions; and seasonal influences on
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donors’ schedules and behavior, throughout the year. One participant acknowledged that “timing
is everything” with donors, and “there is some luck in this job for sure.”
Finding summary. Findings suggested that development officers were not supported
with a culture that had goals and performance measures that were clearly aligned throughout the
organization. The metrics of fundraising activity that were highlighted in the institution’s
monthly reports were different from the metrics that were emphasized to development officers at
Brandiam. Although the organization’s goal was to raise $100 million for scholarships, 10 of the
11 development officers interviewed for this study stated that the total amount of dollars raised
was the primary metric that was valued in their department and it did not matter what the money
was raised for. Development officers were not provided with a tool to be able to easily monitor
their performance of the metrics that were valued within their organization. The inconsistencies
and lack of clarity about performance metrics and goals that were valued by the organization was
a gap as an organizational influence and interacted with development officers’ knowledge and
motivation that hindered their performance to achieve their fundraising goals.
Finding 14: Development officers did not feel supported with a culture that
provided sufficient time and resources for them to focus on concrete and challenging goals
that were valued by the organization. A development officer with more than eight years of
tenure at Brandiam suggested that “the biggest thing” that the organization could provide to
facilitate fundraising success were additional resources that would allow development officers
more time to dedicate to achieving valuable goals and directly building relationships with
donors. She said, “There's so many things that…take away from or distress a development
officer from their work with donors,” and insisted, “I think we could be better fundraisers…if we
had more support.” She further explained, “[We have some assistance] for the purely
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administrative stuff, like expense reports and sometimes for briefings, but [not] in terms of
anything proactive.” She wanted support with administrative tasks that would help development
officers be more responsive to donors, such as replying to emails and following up with
information that had been requested of them. She hoped for assistance with tasks that would
give development officers time to be more strategic and proactive with building relationships
with donors. Her examples of the types of assistance she desired included having a colleague
seek out and share “interesting” reading material with donors and compose messages on her
behalf to donors who she had not contacted within the last quarter. She asserted, “We would be
way more effective if we had that help.” Another development officer thought that “you can just
get overwhelmed” by the logistics of scheduling meetings with donors and finding donors to
speak at events or host students at their companies, all of which were common requests from
other departments. The participant considered these tasks to be distractions and of little value
compared to the concrete goal of raising philanthropic gifts from donors. She suggested that the
organization needed to provide additional resources to assist with these types of tasks in order for
development officers to avoid getting “derailed…from prioritizing fundraising and closing gifts.”
Development officers indicated their interest in wanting to spend more time closing gifts
but did not feel supported by a culture that worked with a similarly high sense of urgency. One
development officer explained that she had experienced many instances of internal delays while
working with colleagues that were relied upon for information. These delays were particularly
common and detrimental during the solicitation and closing phases of the fundraising cycle. The
loss of momentum of moving a process along with a donor negatively affected the likelihood of
closing the gift. A development officer stated, “There is a sluggishness in response internally
and that's huge, so this thing can take a long time for various reasons that’ve just made the gifts
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sometimes disappear.” She provided a real-life example of how internal delays caused one of
her colleagues to lose out “on a big one because of months and months and months of not getting
stuff [from other colleagues].” A participant with more than four years of tenure at Brandiam
separately expressed a similar complaint. She revealed that the lack of internal communication
between colleagues about the estimated time to expect a response, such as when to expect a draft
proposal or gift agreement, was “really kind of frustrating.” The development officer declared
that a lack of communication and delays in the process “happen more often than not.” Another
development officer similarly commented on the internal challenges of not being able to present
donors with timely proposals and disclosed that “many don't make it to closing because of all
these other steps…that take a long time.”
Finding summary. Findings revealed a gap in the organizational influence of providing
development officers with sufficient time and resources that would allow them to primarily
engage in direct frontline relationship-building efforts with donors to raise philanthropic funds.
Interview participants wanted more expediency and direct support from colleagues with
activities that would provide development officers with time to strengthen their relationships
with donors. The gaps of these organizational influences hindered their motivation and
fundraising success. Interview findings indicated that despite the perceived challenges of not
being provided with adequate resources, development officers at Brandiam did not have strong
immediate intentions to leave the organization and were generally focused on the collective
fundraising goal to raise $100 million.
Summary
All 11 development officers interviewed recognized turnover as a major challenge in
fundraising. The turnover problem significantly affected relationships with donors. An
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interview participant commented, “I think turnover for the schools is awful, just terrible, and we
see it a lot.” A development officer with more than four years of fundraising at Brandiam
described an incident in which turnover impacted donors with whom she had worked. The donor
was hesitant about developing a relationship with her because they had worked with many
development officers in the past. She recounted how a donor told her, “You know all of you
girls are so sweet and nice but why would I give you a dollar or a million? I mean, it's like a
revolving door, one after another.” Ultimately, her familiarity with the institution and tenure
with the organization helped her to gain the donor’s trust over time. She said, “The fact that I
came in knowing stuff made them a little bit more interested and happy that they weren't just
repeating [the entire relationship-building process].” This case demonstrated a positive outcome
of retention. Another participant recounted how a team leader praised the advancement team she
had assembled at Brandiam over the past several years and stated, “I've heard her say many times
[that] the major gift team she has in place now, that's the best that we've had.… She's hired them
all.” The participant reflected that except for one person, the several development officers who
had resigned from Brandiam during one manager’s tenure had “gone on to make more money
and have better titles.” Although some development officers may consider their experience at
one organization as a launchpad for career progression or as an opportunity to practice and learn
new skills to transfer to other organizations, a high turnover of development officers impacts the
institution’s relationships with donors and, ultimately, affects fundraising for the institution that
was left behind. It is important for an organization to address the issues around performance and
retention of development officers in order to achieve their fundraising goals.
Table 7 summarizes the key findings and related nuances that addressed the research
questions by percentages of responses across the 11 interview participants in this study.
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Table 7
Summary of Key Findings and Nuances of Interview Participants’ Responses
Finding Nuance Participants
1. Development officers
were knowledgeable
about generally
following a broad
process to conduct
fundraising, however,
they did not clearly
define the phases of the
fundraising cycle
a. Believed they had strong knowledge about
the fundraising cycle
b. Indicated a high degree of confidence about
working through the fundraising cycle
c. Development officers were inconsistent with
how they labelled, described, and applied each
of the fundraising phases
d. Did not mention stewardship as one of the
phases of the solicitation cycle
e. Highlighted cultivation as an essential phase
for fundraising success
a. 82%

b. 73%

c. 91%

d. 55%

e. 73%
2. Development officers
were generally
confident about their
fundraising skills and
did not have high
degrees of motivation to
learn how to improve
their skills
a. Rated highest levels of self-efficacy for
working through all fundraising phases
b. Did not receive any training at Brandiam
about the fundraising phases
c. Did not mention one or both of the phases of
identification and stewardship
d. Believed they would know how to achieve a
successful outcome in fundraising
e. Expressed a lack of confidence about actually
being able to achieve a successful outcome in
fundraising
f. Participated in at least one professional
development workshop within the past 12
months
g. Wanted training on cultivation
a. 64%

b. 82%

c. 73%

d. 100%

e. 18%

f. 55%

g. 18%
3. Development officers
largely relied on their
own experience and
developed their own
approaches to their
fundraising process
a. Learned or were in the process of learning
through experience about how to conduct
fundraising
b. Gained knowledge about how to conduct
fundraising prior to working at Brandiam
c. Did not receive any onboarding about the
fundraising process at Brandiam
d. Valued building long-term relationships with
donors more than meeting goals and deadlines
a. 100%

b. 73%

c. 82%

d. 100%
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4. Development officers
did not highly value
having individual goals
a. Mentioned a standard goal of 12 visits per
month
b. Were unclear about the basis for setting
individual goals
c. Was asked by a supervisor to set a higher
individual fundraising goal than was originally
proposed for the year
d. Considered their individual fundraising
dollar goals to be aspirational and unrealistic
a. 91%

b. 82%

c. 82%

d. 73%
5. Development officers
were not supported with
tools to easily track and
monitor their
fundraising
performance
a. Were unclear about the fundraising jargon
used as performance metrics
b. Created their own record-keeping tool
because the institution’s technology was found
to be inadequate for their needs
c. Relied on the institution’s monthly reports to
monitor their performance to goals
d. Primarily looked at the monthly reports to
see their numerical ranking amongst their peers
e. Discussed specific data from the monthly
reports in staff meetings
a. 27%

b. 27%

c. 64%

d. 91%

e. 0%
6. Development
officers’ levels of
motivation were
influenced by how and
what they were held
accountable for in their
fundraising work
a. Mentioned the institution’s monthly reports
as their guide to identify the goals that were
valued in the organization
b. Were competitive about their month-over-
month ranking with themselves more than with
their peers
c. Explicitly expressed a lack of motivation to
record data into the technology platform
because the data points were not discussed and
were, then, considered to be of low priority
a. 100%

b. 18%

c. 18%
7. Development officers
felt supported by an
organizational culture
that was aligned with
their preferred style of
self-directed work
a. Commented about appreciating the
flexibility, freedom, or autonomy they had with
their fundraising work at Brandiam
b. Expressed interest in being provided with
more structured onboarding, guidance, and
feedback
a. 100%

b. 91%
8. Development officers
worked within a setting
that provided a broadly
positive environment
but did not provide
them with specific and
constructive feedback
about their performance
a. Had not received any specific constructive
feedback about their performance
b. Explicitly described not being proactive
about seeking constructive criticism about their
performance
c. Received positive comments about their
performance from their respective supervisor
d. Received no feedback from their supervisor
a. 82%

b. 36%

c. 82%

d. 18%
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9. Development officers
did not feel supported
with an organization
that proactively
provided role models
and forums for strategic
collaboration
a. Expressed interest for the organization to
facilitate more internal collaboration
b. Wanted more frequent discussions to learn
from colleagues about how they worked
through challenging situations in fundraising
a. 91%

b. 55%
10. Development
officers wanted a
setting that encouraged
them to prioritize
engaging in reflection
and improving their
individual performance
a. Believed that everyone had the potential to
improve their knowledge and skills
b. Wanted to learn specifically about gift
planning
a. 91%

b. 27%
11. Development
officers did not feel
supported with a culture
that offered training
sessions that were of
high value to them
a. Expressed interest for workshops that were
tailored to their specific context and
professional needs
a. 91%
12. Development
officers felt supported
working within a setting
that valued long-term
relationships
a. Allowed donors to steer the pace of
fundraising
b. Indicated that their performance was not
primarily driven by expectations for increases
in financial compensation
c. Explicitly described some disappointment in
the lack of extrinsic rewards, such as increases
in salary or career progression
a. 100%
b. 100%

c. 64%
13. The institution’s
formal measures of
fundraising
performance were not
aligned with the areas
by which development
officers were evaluated
in their organization
a. Did not feel that their efforts were highly
valued
b. Believed that their monthly ranking amongst
peers was not valued by the organization
c. Commented that their efforts to build long-
term relationships with donors was not
recognized as valuable to the organization
d. Suggested that the collective total dollars
raised for the school was the sole most valued
metric
a. 36%
b. 36%

c. 45%

d. 91%
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 170

14. Development
officers did not feel
supported with
sufficient time and
resources to focus on
concrete and
challenging goals that
were valued by the
organization
a. Believed that fundraising performance would
improve if the organization provided more
strategic and administrative support
a. 45%

The findings from the interviews with 11 development officers and document review
suggested that there were remaining gaps in the knowledge and motivation of development
officers about the fundraising cycle, how to evaluate their performance, and perceived value of
their individual performance goals. Nevertheless, the findings indicated that self-efficacy was an
asset for development officers, as they generally felt efficacious about their ability to work
through the fundraising cycle and achieve their goals.
However, there were remaining gaps in the organization’s cultural models and cultural
settings that interacted with development officers’ knowledge and motivational assets that did
not facilitate their performance. The organization did not support development officers with
performance goals and did not place high value on providing convenient resources and mentors
to development officers about how to fundraise. In addition, development officers were not
provided with thorough and honest evaluations about their fundraising knowledge and skills, and
they did not receive constructive feedback about their performance. Furthermore, the
organization did not provide tools to development officers on how to evaluate their strengths and
challenges in order to improve their performance. These organizational influences hampered
development officers’ motivation and hindered their performance to efficiently and effectively
achieve their goal to raise $100 million, as a unit, by July 2022 and for the organization to,
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ultimately, enhance capacity and retention of high performing development officers. The next
chapter will offer recommendations for practice.

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Chapter Five: Recommendations
The purpose of this study was to conduct a needs analysis of development officers at the
Brandiam School to achieve their collective goal to raise $100 million by July 2022 and,
ultimately, for the organization to enhance capacity and retention of high performing
development officers. This problem was important to address because development officers’
work to raise philanthropic gifts from private sources has become critical for recruiting and
retaining talent, including students, to institutions of higher education. This study focused on the
knowledge, motivation, and organization influences on development officers. Chapter Four
presented key findings from the qualitative data collected from formal interviews of development
officers and a review of the online catalogue of professional development seminars available to
development officers over a period of four months. Chapter Five presents recommendations for
practice that incorporate the gaps and assets found in relation to the knowledge, motivation, and
organizational influences on development officers at Brandiam. The recommendations will be
implemented as a learning program spanning three months. The program will involve two major
parts: the first part consists of asynchronous modules and the second part involves group
workshops. Implementation of the program will be evaluated using the New World Kirkpatrick
Model (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016) with four levels. The model begins with designing and
evaluating the Level 4 results to evaluate whether the learning program is delivering business
value to the organization. Level 3 behavior refers to the participants’ application of the
knowledge and skills they acquired during the program when they are back on the job. Level 2
learning is the acquisition of the targeted knowledge and skills. Level 1 evaluates the reactions
of participants about the program.
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Recommendations for Practice to Address the Knowledge, Motivation, and Organizational
Influences
Knowledge, motivation, and organizational factors are influences that impact
performance (Clark & Estes, 2008). This study incorporated principles found in the literature,
qualitative data collected from participants in this project, and experiential knowledge, all of
which informed the decisions of the specific influences on which to apply proposed
recommendations for practice. The proposed implementation and evaluation package is
described in the following section to address Research Question 3. The package includes
recommended activities and programs to address gaps in knowledge, motivation, and
organizational influences that hinder the performance and retention of development officers at
Brandiam.
Knowledge Recommendations
Development officers at Brandiam need procedural and metacognitive knowledge to
achieve their fundraising goals. The findings presented in Chapter Four indicated there were
gaps in their knowledge in these areas. Development officers need to have the procedural
knowledge of knowing how to operate through the phases of the fundraising cycle and applying
their knowledge to the appropriate contexts. They also need to have metacognitive knowledge to
know how to reflect on their fundraising skills, evaluate their strengths and challenges, and
strategize and modify their behavior in order to improve their performance. Table 8 provides the
assumed knowledge influences and the gaps found from the stakeholder interviews and
document review. The table also includes recommendations for development officers at
Brandiam based on the knowledge influences that were identified as remaining needs for
achieving the stakeholder goal. The procedural knowledge of knowing the steps of the
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fundraising cycle and knowing how to apply them is a high priority for development officers to
facilitate their collectively raising $100 million by July 2022. The metacognitive knowledge of
development officers is also a high priority for stakeholders to engage in reflection to further
improve their performance and more efficiently contribute to achieving their goal.
Table 8
Summary of Knowledge Influences and Recommendations
Assumed Knowledge Influence Gap Context-Specific Recommendation
Procedural:
Development officers need to know
how to operate through the phases of
the fundraising cycle, which is also
known as the development cycle, gift
cycle, donor cycle, and solicitation
cycle.
Yes Provide training with concrete examples
and case studies of steps to address
problematic scenarios, provide guidance
via modeling, and provide ask and answer
sessions with practice and feedback from
high-performing development officers.
Metacognitive:
Development officers need to know
how to evaluate their own strengths
and challenges with fundraising in
order to identify their potential areas
of improvement and to more
efficiently achieve their performance
goals.
Yes Provide training in which peer models talk
through their decision-making process,
strategies, reflective practices, and
improvement opportunities, and establish a
personalized schedule to incorporate a
reflective step into regular work practices
with immediate targeted feedback.

Development officers can gain procedural and metacognitive knowledge through
strategic discussions, training sessions, practice scenarios, and observing modeled behavior.
Procedural knowledge includes the comprehensive steps of knowing a process or procedure,
knowing when to decide to apply that knowledge, and knowing how to perform the task
(Krathwohl, 2002). Development officers need to know how to operate through the phases of
the fundraising cycle. According to social cognitive theory, self-directed learning and
performance can be improved when the strategies or behaviors that should be learned are
modeled (Denler, Wolters, & Benzon, 2009). Furthermore, information processing theory states
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that individuals must acquire component skills, practice integrating them, and know when to
apply what they have learned in order to develop mastery (Schraw & McCrudden, 2006). These
principles would suggest that providing training through modeling would support their learning.
The recommendation, then, is to provide development officers with training that includes
concrete examples and case studies of steps to address problematic scenarios, guidance via
modeling, ask-and-answer sessions, and opportunities to practice and gain feedback from high-
performing development officers.
Development officers need to have a complex and varied set of interpersonal and
strategic skills (Worth, 2002). Development officers with improper training risk damaging their
institution and its relationships with donors (Caboni, 2010; Caboni, 2012; Knowles & Gomes,
2009). Although there is a dearth of empirical evidence in the context of training studies on
development officers, Murthy, Challagalla, Vincent, and Shervani (2008) conducted a field study
of training methods of call center agents. Like development officers, call center agents often
work in environments in which they interact with people and apply procedural knowledge.
Murthy et al.’s (2008) study demonstrated significant performance improvements through
behavior modeling and simulations. The theoretical principle of modeling in social cognitive
theory and the application of findings from the call center field study support the
recommendation to provide training to development officers to improve their learning and
performance to achieve their goal of raising $100 million by July 2022.
Development officers can gain metacognitive knowledge by engaging in reflection
and observing modeled behavior. Metacognitive knowledge involves the knowledge of
cognition and self, and may include self-evaluation, reflection, strategizing, planning,
assessment, and adaptation (Krathwohl, 2002). Development officers need to know how to
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evaluate their own strengths and challenges with fundraising in order to identify their potential
areas of improvement and more efficiently achieve their performance goals. Reflection and self-
regulation are critical factors for evaluating one’s performance (Baker, 2006; Krathwohl, 2002).
Observed behavior and skills are more likely to be modeled by learners if the model is credible
and similar to them, and the behavior is considered to have functional value (Denler, Wolters, &
Benzon, 2009). These principles suggest that providing development officers with training on
reflection, as modeled by peers, would improve their learning. The recommendation, then, is to
provide training in which peer models talk through their decision-making process, strategies,
reflective practices, and improvement opportunities and establish their own schedule to
incorporate a reflective step into regular work practices with immediate targeted feedback.
Schussler et al. (2008) studied the results of a seminar that incorporated reflective
practices to assist graduate students with their personal teaching skills and techniques. The
researchers found that learners questioned traditional practices and gained skills in teaching and
their delivery of content. De Backer, Van Keer, and Valcke (2012) studied semester-long peer
tutoring in higher education and found that students engaged in increased metacognitive
regulation throughout the semester. Applying the findings from other higher educational
contexts, the evidence supports providing training to development officers as a means of learning
how to engage in reflection to improve metacognitive knowledge and enhance learning through
peer modeling to efficiently achieve their goal of raising $100 million by July 2022.
Motivation Recommendations
The Clark and Estes (2008) gap analysis framework guided the evaluation of motivation
influences on performance. The motivation influences were prioritized by those having the most
impact on performance based on the analysis of interview data in this study. Individuals are
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more likely to engage in tasks when they consider them of value (Eccles, 2006). Also,
individuals’ sense of self-efficacy affects whether they persist in a task and the degree to which
they expend mental effort with an activity (Bandura, 2000; Pajares, 2006). Models that are
credible and similar can increase self-efficacy and performance (Denler, Wolters, & Benzon,
2006). When development officers value goals, they are more likely to expend mental effort to
achieve them. Table 9 summarizes the motivational influences of the principles of utility value
and self-efficacy and recommendations to address these constructs for development officers at
Brandiam.
Table 9
Summary of Motivation Influences and Recommendations
Assumed Motivation Influence Gap Context-Specific Recommendation
Value Orientation:
Development officers need to see
individual value in performance goals.
Yes Provide opportunities for peer models
during training to demonstrate the
usefulness that goals can have when they
are valued as a motivator of performance.
Self-Efficacy:
Development officers need to feel
efficacious about their ability to
effectively work through every phase
of the fundraising cycle.
No Provide opportunities for team meetings to
collaborate, talk through thought processes
and strategies, and learn from peers with
accurate and targeted feedback from
development officers.

Development officers need peers to model the usefulness of having goals and
working toward individual goals that are valuable for achieving fundraising success.
Utility value is the perceived value or usefulness that a task has on an individual’s needs or
future goals (Eccles, 2006). Individuals need to value a task if they are going to have the
motivation, including the choice to engage in, persist with, and put forth the mental effort into
that task, to achieve their goals (Bandura, 2005; Clark & Estes, 2008). Development officers
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need to see value in individual performance goals and tracking their performance toward those
goals. An individual’s value of a task is influenced by the utility value, or usefulness, that the
individual places on that task (Eccles, 2006). This would suggest that by providing development
officers with opportunities to learn about the usefulness of goals would increase their perceived
value for having goals. The recommendation, rooted in utility value theory, then, is for the
organization to provide development officers with opportunities for peer models during training
to demonstrate the usefulness that goals can have when they are valued as a motivator of
performance.
Hulleman, Kosovich, Barron, and Daniel (2017) replicated a prior study of a utility value
intervention in the classroom and extended the research of the theory. In the two studies with
113 and 388 university students, they found that those participants involved in the intervention
that prompted them to make connections between the course material and their lives increased
their utility value and resulted in high performance compared to the control group. Canning,
Harackiewicz, Priniski, Hecht, Tibbetts, and Hyde (2018) studied a sample of 577 university
students in biology and found that those participants exposed to utility value interventions earned
a higher course grade on average than those who were not. These findings suggest that
providing development officers with opportunities to make connections about the usefulness of
goals would improve their utility value and motivation to expend adequate mental effort and
individually contribute to achieving the collective goal of raising $100 million by July 2022.
Development officers need to receive specific and constructive feedback from
colleagues to improve their self-efficacy and performance. Self-efficacy refers to the
perceived belief in one’s own capability to perform a task at a certain level and is affected by
feedback and situational context (Bandura, 1977; Bandura, 2000). Those with high self-efficacy
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tend to be more effective and extend more effort in the face of challenges compared to those with
perceived low self-efficacy (Denler, Wolters, & Benzon, 2006). Development officers need to
feel efficacious about their ability to effectively work through every phase of the fundraising
cycle to efficiently achieve their fundraising goal. Models that are credible and similar can
increase self-efficacy and performance (Denler, Wolters, & Benzon, 2006). This would suggest
that by providing development officers with opportunities to learn from peer models what they
need to do and then providing them with feedback on their performance would increase their
self-efficacy. The recommendation, rooted in self-efficacy theory, then, is for the organization to
provide opportunities for development officers to have team meetings to collaborate, talk
through thought processes and strategies, and learn from peers by receiving accurate and targeted
feedback about their performance.
Williams-Payne (2013) studied a professional development intervention that included
instructional sessions led by a master teacher who also observed and provided targeted feedback
to the teacher participants. In the study with a purposive sampling of eight high school teachers,
Williams-Payne (2013) found that modeling, practice sessions, and feedback given during the
intervention helped to increase teacher efficacy and teaching practices. Siegle and McCoach’s
(2007) research involved a sample of 38 teachers and 872 fifth-grade students. They found
increased self-efficacy of those students taught by teachers who received some training on self-
efficacy strategies and incorporated reviews of past performance, observations of models, and
verbal persuasion or feedback. These findings support the recommendation for the organization
to increase development officers’ self-efficacy by providing opportunities in which development
officers can discuss, practice, learn from peers, and receive accurate and targeted feedback to
improve their performance and achieve their goal of raising $100 million by July 2022.
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Recommendations Related to Organizational Influences
Performance is affected by knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences (Clark
& Estes, 2008). The assumed organization influences for this study were identified through a
review of the literature and interviews conducted with development officers at Brandiam.
Cultural settings and cultural models were the influences that were selected as needs for
development officers in the organization. Table 10 summarizes these organization influences
and provides context-specific recommendations for Brandiam to better facilitate development
officers’ performance and, ultimately, enhance their retention and long-term achievement of
fundraising to support students and advance higher education.
Table 10
Summary of Organization Influences and Recommendations
Assumed Organization Influence Gap Context-Specific Recommendation
Cultural Settings: The organization
needs to provide development
officers with role models and
mentors on how to fundraise.

Yes Schedule consistent team meetings in which
development officers share best practices
and learn from their peers.
Cultural Models: The organization
needs to have a culture that
provides development officers with
honest evaluation and feedback
about their performance.

Yes Routinely conduct meetings with
development officers to follow up about their
progress to their goals, recognize their
accomplishments, and provide specific and
constructive feedback about their tasks.
Cultural Models: The organization
needs to have a culture that values
setting appropriate, clear, concrete,
and challenging goals for
development officers.
Yes Provide development officers with goals that
are valued by the organization and are clear,
concrete, challenging, and relevant to each
development officer.
Cultural Settings: The organization
needs to provide development
officers the time and tools to
effectively evaluate their strengths
and challenges with fundraising.

Yes Schedule consistent time for development
officers to discuss their self-regulation
techniques, practice their fundraising skills,
and receive immediate and targeted feedback
from their peers.
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Cultural models. Cultural models refer to the shared values, beliefs, and practices that
have developed over time, become group norms, and are expressed in a generally automated
manner (Gallimore & Goldenberg, 2001). Of the cultural influences considered in this study, the
selected area of focus is the organizational culture of not valuing increased performance through
feedback. This cultural model was identified most frequently by interview participants as
lacking in their organization. The organization needs to have a culture that promotes
performance feedback as a crucial component of the organization. Organizational performance
increases when participants have clear, current, and challenges goals, and are provided with
feedback that is timely, concrete, and goal-focused (Kluger & DeNisi, 1998). Organizational
performance increases when individuals have clear, concrete, and measurable goals that are
relevant to their own circumstances (Knowles, 1980). The recommendation, then, for the
organization is to provide development officers with goals that are valued by the organization
and are clear, concrete, challenging, and relevant to each development officer. The organization
also should routinely conduct meetings with development officers to follow up about their
progress to their goals, recognize their accomplishments, and provide specific and constructive
feedback about their tasks to further demonstrate that they are valued and that performance
improvements are encouraged and recognized.
Kuvaas, Buch, and Dysvik (2017) found a positive relationship between work
performance and both the perceived constructiveness and perceived immediacy and frequency of
supervisor feedback. Their study involved 158 Norwegian governmental employees, along with
responses from their supervisors, and highlighted the importance of timely, specific, and
strength-based feedback to improve performance. Eyre (2011) reported on a Threshold and
YouGov study that surveyed 965 UK adult employees and found that only 41% of employees
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were given performance feedback that was detailed and specific by their managers. The
Threshold survey also revealed that 81% of the segment that was identified as highly motivated
indicated that their managers gave direct, honest feedback and, in turn, the employees exerted
additional effort at work. These findings support the recommendation for the organization to
provide feedback to development officers that is immediate, specific, strength-based, and
constructive to improve their performance of raising $100 million by July 2022.
Cultural settings. Cultural settings are the visible domains and activities between
people and include the manifestations of cultural models (Gallimore & Goldenberg, 2001).
Although several cultural settings influences were considered in this study, the selected area of
focus is the influence that was most frequently mentioned by interview participants during data
collection. The organization needs to provide development officers with role models and
mentors who demonstrate how to fundraise efficiently and effectively. Organizational
performance increases when participants have repeated exposure to models who are perceived as
similar, competent, and relevant (Denler, Wolters, & Benzon, 2006). Organizational
performance increases when individuals communicate constantly and candidly with one another
about plans and processes (Clark & Estes, 2008). The recommendation, then, is for the
organization to schedule consistent team meetings in which development officers proactively
share best practices, collaborate, and learn from their peers.
Williams-Payne (2013) studied a professional development intervention on teaching
practices. In a sample of eight teachers, Williams-Payne (2013) suggested that the intervention,
which included mentoring and coaching by a master teacher, improved teacher efficacy and
instructional practices. Hiemer’s (2017) case study of 13 nursing students found that mentoring
by senior nursing students increased the self-efficacy of the mentees. These findings support the
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recommendation for the organization to proactively provide mentors to development officers to
increase officer performance and more effectively achieve the goal of raising $100 million by
July 2022.
Integrated Implementation and Evaluation Plan
Implementation and Evaluation Framework
The New World Kirkpatrick Model (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016) was used to design
the integrated implementation and evaluation plan for this study. The new model is an updated
framework of Kirkpatrick’s (1994) original model of the four levels of training and evaluation
developed in the 1950s. The New World Kirkpatrick Model emphasizes the importance of
identifying the measurable results, or key outcomes, in the beginning stage of designing an
implementation and evaluation plan. With results categorized as Level 4 of the original
Kirkpatrick model, the New World Kirkpatrick Model considers the end at the beginning. The
results of focus are the organization’s key outcomes and become the underlying driving purpose
for designing the recommended training or intervention. The second step in the New World
Kirkpatrick framework is to identify the Level 3 critical behaviors that will contribute to the
Level 4 results. These critical behaviors are measurable in order for the organization to track
transfer and application of the learning to observable behavior on the job. In this study, Level 3
evaluation compares development officers’ behavior before, during, and after implementation of
the intervention or solution. Further, Level 3 critical behaviors must be supported by required
drivers, which include the knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences that are needed
to monitor, encourage, reinforce, and reward the achievement of development officers’
outcomes. The third step of designing the integrated implementation and evaluation plan is to
cascade down from observing the consistent on-the-job behaviors of participants to assessing the
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amount of learning, known as Level 2 in the Kirkpatrick model, that is gained from the training.
Finally, the last step in designing the integrated implementation and evaluation plan is to develop
the method for evaluating stakeholders’ reactions at Kirkpatrick’s Level 1. Level 1 gauges the
reactions of participants in terms of their engagement, finding relevance of, and satisfaction with
the training.
By starting from Level 4 and going to Level 1, the New World Kirkpatrick Model
(Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016) is used to design an integrated implementation and evaluation
plan in reverse order of Kirkpatrick’s original four levels. This new model provides a strategic
framework to align organizational outcomes with critical behaviors required of the participants.
The model takes into consideration organizational factors that are needed to support the short-
and long-term transfer of stakeholders’ learning to behaviors on the job. Furthermore, the plan
incorporates frequent points of evaluation. The organization, then, can track post-
implementation behavior and outcomes, which facilitates the monitoring of progress toward the
stakeholder goal and provides several opportunities for the organization and participants to make
progressive adjustments, if needed, along the way.
Organizational Purpose, Need, and Expectations
Within an institution of higher education, the Brandiam School’s mission is to educate
and train leaders to be well prepared to confront critical problems being faced in business.
Brandiam’s organizational goal is to achieve its comprehensive fundraising campaign goal by
raising $500 million by July 2022. With $400 million already raised by February 2018, the
current organizational goal of focus for this study is to raise the remaining $100 million by July
2022. The stakeholder group of focus is the development officers charged with raising private
charitable and philanthropic gifts, all of which directly contribute to the school’s organizational
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mission and goal. The stakeholder goal is for development officers, as a unit, to raise $100
million. This performance amounts to an average of $25 million per year over the remaining
four years of the campaign. This averaged annual performance goal of $25 million is slightly
more than double the stakeholder group’s pre-campaign performance of raising an average of
$12 million per year to all designations across Brandiam and seven times more than the $3.5
million pre-campaign average raised for scholarships. With the preference for Brandiam’s
advancement staff to raise $100 million specifically for scholarships, or an average of $25
million for four years, the group’s current goal also represents an annual performance that would
more than double Brandiam’s annual average of raising $10 million specifically for scholarships
during the campaign. The integrated implementation and evaluation plan is expected to improve
the performance and retention of development officers and facilitate their achievement of
contributing an additional $100 million to the school’s campaign and ensure that Brandiam
achieves its organizational goal to raise $500 million by July 2022.
Level 4: Results and Leading Indicators
Table 11 displays the Level 4 results of the outcomes, metrics, and methods that will
serve as leading indicators for key external and internal outcomes at Brandiam. The short-term
observations and measurements that will indicate that development officers are achieving the
desired outcomes include the total amount of outright cash and pledged gifts secured by
development officers. The measurable internal outcomes are that development officers, as a unit,
will demonstrate increased productivity by the number of donor records updated, an increased
measurement of employee satisfaction as demonstrated by an increased average tenure, and the
achievement of raising an annual average of $25 million. The internal performance results will
be reported and compared to previous results on a monthly basis. The external outcomes include
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the increased number of donors to the school and the increased number of students aided by the
scholarship funds raised by development officers. The progress of external measurements will
be tracked monthly and compared to the results of the prior year.
Table 11
Outcomes, Metrics, and Methods for External and Internal Outcomes
Outcome Metric(s) Method(s)
External Outcomes
1. Increased number
of donors to the
school.
a. Total number of
donors to the school.
Team leader to compare the total number
of donors to the prior year.

b. Number of repeat
donors to the school.
Team leader to compare the total number
of renewed donors to the prior year.
2. Increased number
of students aided by
scholarships.
Total number of student
recipients of donor-
funded scholarships at
the school.
Solicit data from the scholarship team
and compare the school’s total number of
donor-funded scholarship recipients to
the prior year.
Internal Outcomes
3. Development
officers raised at least
$25 million annually.
Total dollars raised for
the school during the
fiscal year.
Compile reports from the university’s
donor database team on a monthly basis.
4. Increased
productivity of
development officers.
Number of donor
updates (e.g., contact
reports, moves) filed per
development officer.
Review monthly performance reports of
development officers’ activity.
5. Increased employee
satisfaction of
development officers.
Average tenure of the
frontline fundraising
development staff.
Compare average tenure (or retention
rate) of development officers on an
annual basis.

Level 3: Behavior
Critical behaviors. Level 3 focuses on the critical behaviors that are needed of the
stakeholder group of focus to achieve the targeted results described in Level 4. The stakeholders
of focus are the development officers responsible for raising philanthropic gifts for the school.
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The first critical behavior that development officers will have to demonstrate is to increase the
number of interactions that they have with donors. The second critical behavior is to increase the
number of staff meetings that development officers have in which fundraising strategies are
discussed. The third critical behavior is for development officers to increase the number of staff
meetings that they have about improving their own fundraising performance. The specific
metrics, methods, and timing for each of these critical behaviors appears in Table 12.
Table 12
Critical Behaviors, Metrics, Methods, and Timing for Evaluation
Critical Behavior Metric(s) Method(s) Timing
1. Development
officers increase the
number of
interactions they
have with donors.
a. Number of gift-
related discussions
that development
officers have with
donors.
Team leader to compare
monthly year-to-date
performance reports of
development officers.
Monthly for the
first 3 months, then
6, 9, and 12
months after
implementation.

b. Number of
fundraising-stage
moves reported per
development officer.
Team leader to compare
monthly year-to-date
performance reports of
development officers.
Monthly for the
first 3 months, then
6, 9, and 12
months after
implementation.
2. Development
officers increase the
number of staff
meetings they have
in which they
discuss fundraising
strategies about their
interactions with
donors.
Number of meetings
in which development
officers discuss their
strategies, best
practices, decision-
making process,
approaches, etc.
Supervisors to conduct
monthly reviews of
staff meeting agendas
and notes to monitor the
frequency and
usefulness of strategy
discussions that took
place between
development officers.
Monthly for the
first 3 months, then
6, 9, and 12
months after
implementation.
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3. Development
officers increase the
number of staff
meetings they have
in which they
discuss improving
their own
fundraising
performance.
Number of meetings
in which development
officers practice, talk
through, or reflect on
their fundraising
approaches and
receive immediate and
constructive feedback
about their
performance.
Supervisors to conduct
monthly check-ins with
development officers to
track the frequency of
staff meetings,
trainings, or simulations
that incorporated
specific feedback-
related activities about
individuals’
performance.
Monthly for the
first 3 months, then
6, 9, and 12
months after
implementation.

Required drivers. Development officers need the support of their supervisors, peers on
their team, and the organization to reinforce what they learn and to encourage them to apply
what they have learned about fundraising practices and strategies. Encouragement and rewards
are used as motivation influences of development officers’ critical behaviors. Internal means of
acknowledging development officers’ performance should be established when performance
benchmarks are met. Finally, the organization ensures accountability by monitoring the critical
behaviors of development officers that are needed to drive the achievement of their performance.
Table 13 shows the recommended drivers that will support the critical behaviors of development
officers needed to achieve their collective goal of raising $100 million by July 2022.
Table 13
Required Drivers to Support Critical Behaviors
Method(s) Timing
Critical
Behaviors
Supported
1, 2, 3 Etc.
Reinforcing

Job aid that includes a decision tree of the fundraising
cycle and process for development officers.
Ongoing 1
Team meetings in which development officers discuss
goals, challenges, strategies, and time frames.
Monthly 2, 3
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Encouraging

Collaboration and peer modeling of best practices during
development officers’ team meetings.
Monthly 2, 3
Timely, honest, and constructive feedback given to
development officers from the team leader, mentor, and
peer models.
Ongoing, at
least monthly
2, 3
Rewarding

Internal acknowledgement (department-wide or school-
wide) of development officers when performance
benchmarks are met.
Monthly, or at
least quarterly
1, 2, 3
Monitoring

Team leader to assess development officers’ goal
progress and make adjustments to expectations, provide
constructive feedback, or provide recommendations for
additional training.
Quarterly 2, 3

Organizational support. Following the recommendations described in the
organizational table, the organization will support development officers’ critical behaviors to
ensure that the required drivers are implemented on a continuous basis. The school’s
advancement department will bring together development officers to discuss the need and to
collaboratively develop a plan to incorporate learning and development practices into their
workload while continuing to raise funds for the school. Consistent team meetings will be
scheduled in which development officers will share best practices and learn from their peers.
The organization will routinely have supervisors conduct meetings with development officers to
follow up about their progress to their goals, recognize their accomplishments, and provide
specific and constructive feedback about their tasks. Time will be consistently scheduled in one-
on-one staff meetings and monthly team meetings for development officers to engage in open
communication with one another about their goals, plans, progress, reflections, and support of
one another. Fundraising practices and strategies will be a topic of discussion on a monthly or
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more frequent basis during these staff meetings. Frequent communication will help create a
stronger culture of trust, collaboration, communication, and awareness of one’s self and of their
peers. The organization will monitor the outcomes, conduct assessments, and provide monthly
updates about the numbers of staff meetings in which these new practices have been
incorporated. Finally, the organization will annually review the internal outcomes, which
include development officers raising an average of at least $25 million, increased productivity of
development officers as illustrated by the number of donor updates filed in the donor database,
and increased employee satisfaction as seen in the average tenure of development officers on
staff, as well as the external outcomes, which are the total number of donors to the school and
total number of students aided by donor-funded scholarships at the school.
Level 2: Learning
In this organization, development officers need to have procedural knowledge of how to
work through the fundraising cycle and metacognitive knowledge to know how to evaluate their
own strengths and challenges with fundraising. The knowledge and skills developed through the
implementation of the learning program at Kirkpatrick’s Level 2 will help development officers
perform the critical behaviors described in Kirkpatrick’s Level 3. The critical behaviors that
development officers need to display are increasing the number of interactions that they have
with donors, increasing the number of staff meetings in which fundraising strategies are
discussed, and increasing the number of staff meetings in which they discuss their own
fundraising performance. This section describes the recommended learning goals, program, and
evaluation of the components of Level 2 Learning that development officers at Brandiam need to
demonstrate.
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Learning goals. Following completion of the recommended learning program,
development officers will specifically be able to:
1. Evaluate their portfolio of donors for the proper phases of the fundraising cycle
(procedural knowledge)
2. Design a plan for each of their top donors (procedural knowledge)
3. Create a strategic work plan, including goals, sub goals, action steps, timelines, and
alternatives, for working with their top donors (metacognitive knowledge)
4. Reflect on and critique their own performance with fundraising (metacognitive
knowledge)
5. Value performance goals in their work (value orientation)
6. Indicate confidence about their ability to work through every phase of the fundraising
cycle (self-efficacy)
Program. The learning program will consist of two major parts with an estimated total
duration of 10 hours of individual and group activities offered over a six-week timeframe. The
first part will be delivered online on an individual basis and the second part will be conducted in
three live activities held in small and large groups. Additional resources, reference materials,
and job aids will be available at all times on a shared network drive that is accessible to
development officers through their work computer devices.
The first portion of the learning program will include brief video trainings and online
assessments about the fundraising cycle and potential areas of improvement. It is important for
learning to consider individuals’ prior experience and knowledge. Artino’s (2008) review for
educational practitioners presented a discussion about enhancing learning by reducing extraneous
cognitive load and increasing learners’ germane cognitive load and how the learner’s experience
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 192

has an impact on their training. Development officers will be able to participate in the online
module at their own individual pace during a two-week timeframe. The required online portion
of the program is estimated to take two hours.
The second portion of the learning program will be delivered in a series of activities over
a month-long timeframe consisting of a one-hour whole team meeting, half-hour role play
sessions in small groups, and a three-hour-long whole team meeting. First, development officers
will have a one-hour-long group meeting to discuss their questions about fundraising and have
the opportunity to share best practices. Next, teams of two or three development officers at a
time will schedule half-hour-long role play sessions to run through at least three simulations that
will be video recorded. These sessions will be observed live or reviewed by two assigned peers.
Within two days following the role play session, the two observer-peers will each provide
development officers with specific, timely, and constructive feedback about the approaches they
used during the role play sessions. Every development officer will be an active participate in at
least one role play session that is video recorded, serve in an observation role and provide
feedback to development officers after at least one role play session, and be required to provide
at least three comments that are specific and span both positive and constructive feedback.
Development officers may also review their videotaped sessions to critique their own
performance at their convenience. Finally, one month after the first large group meeting,
development officers will have a three-hour-long live group meeting to discuss their experiences
with the learning program. As a group, development officers will share their new knowledge,
run through at least three role play sessions with modeled behavior and feedback, discuss
improvements, and develop a shared knowledge base of best practices for future reference. In
the meeting, development officers will be given time to reflect on their own performance and
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 193

generate a basic plan with goals for their continued professional development. These plans will
be discussed with their supervisor during their next one-on-one staff meeting.
Evaluation of the components of learning. Learning requires stakeholders to have the
requisite knowledge and skills as well as the motivation to value and engage in a learning
program, in order to transfer their learning to on-the-job performance. As such, it is important
for these components of learning to be evaluated during and after the program. Table 14 lists the
evaluation activities and timing for these components of learning for development officers at
Brandiam.
Table 14
Evaluation of the Components of Learning for the Program
Method(s) or Activity(ies) Timing
Declarative Knowledge “I know it.”

Knowledge checks of development officers
using multiple-choice items in the assessments
In the asynchronous online portion of the
learning program
Knowledge checks of development officers
through their live discussions, group activities,
team meetings, and individual activities
During the learning program, periodically
during the live sessions and in individual
reflection activities
Procedural Skills “I can do it right now.”

During the asynchronous online portion of the
learning program using scenarios with multiple-
choice items
In the asynchronous online portion of the
learning program

Demonstration by development officers in role
play sessions during group sessions
During the learning program, periodically
during the live sessions and through
feedback given after role play activities
Attitude “I believe this is worthwhile.”

Learning facilitator’s observations of
development officers’ statements and actions
demonstrating that they see the value of what
they are being asked to learn and apply on the
job
In the live group activities during the
learning program and in follow-up staff
meetings to discuss individual performance
and professional development plans
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 194

Retrospective pre- and post-test assessment
survey asking development officers about their
level of proficiency before and after the
learning program
At the end of the last group meeting during
the learning program
Confidence “I think I can do it on the job.”

Retrospective pre- and post-program survey
item responses of development officers
At the end of the last group meeting during
the learning program
Team leader’s observations of development
officers’ statements and actions demonstrating
that they feel confident about what they are
being asked to learn and apply on the job
In the live group activities during the
program and in follow-up staff meetings to
discuss individual performance and
professional development plans after
completion of the learning program
Commitment “I will do it on the job.”

Survey items using modified Likert-style scale After each module of parts one and two of
the learning program
Discussions with development officers
following practice and feedback
After role play sessions and in live group
activities during the learning program
Create an individual action plan In the last group meeting during the
learning program
Retrospective pre- and post-program survey
item responses of development officers
At the end of the last group meeting of the
learning program
Post-program discussions with development
officers and their supervisors
In follow-up staff meetings after completion
of the learning program

Level 1: Reaction
Formative evaluation methods provide immediate feedback and offer the facilitator an
opportunity to adjust the program content to the needs of the learning participants (Kirkpatrick &
Kirkpatrick, 2016). Engagement, relevance, and customer satisfaction are components that can
be used in formative evaluation of participants at Level 1. Meeting the relevance and satisfaction
needs of learners affects their engagement in an activity (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016). As
such, it is important to evaluate the reactions of development officers during and not long after
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 195

implementation of the learning program. Table 15 lists the evaluation methods and timing for
these components of reactions of Brandiam development officers about the learning program.
Table 15
Components to Measure Reactions to the Program
Method(s) or Tool(s) Timing
Engagement

Completion of the online units Ongoing during the asynchronous portion of the learning
program
Attendance Ongoing during the learning program
Observation by the facilitator During the learning program
Course evaluation Two weeks after completion of the learning program
Relevance

Brief pulse-check with
participants via online survey
After each online unit of the asynchronous portion of the
learning program
Brief pulse-check with
participants via discussion
After each meeting or unit of the synchronous portion of
the learning program
Course evaluation Two weeks after completion of the learning program
Customer Satisfaction

Brief pulse-check with
participants via online survey
After each online unit of the asynchronous portion of the
learning program
Brief pulse-check with
participants via discussion
After each meeting or unit of the synchronous portion of
the learning program
Course evaluation Two weeks after completion of the learning program

Evaluation Tools
In addition to evaluations that are conducted during the program, the participants’
reactions, learning, and behavior transfer to the job will be evaluated immediately following the
program’s implementation. The Kirkpatrick Levels 1-4, including results, will be further
evaluated after a short period after program implementation.
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Immediately following the program implementation. The online module of the
program will include brief surveys (Appendix C) after each module prompting participants to
indicate their reaction, relevance of the material to their work, and overall satisfaction with the
content and delivery of the asynchronous parts of the program. During the in-person
synchronous portions of the program, the facilitator will conduct periodic brief pulse-checks with
participants with surveys (Appendix D) discussions about the relevance of the content, the
delivery, and the learning environment. Immediately following the program implementation, the
facilitator will administer an evaluation instrument (Appendix E) in which participants can
indicate their retrospective pre- and post-program ratings and comments about the program’s
content and relevance (Level 1), their confidence and value of applying their new learning to
their work (Level 2), and their plans and commitment for application on the job (Level 3).
Delayed for a period after the program implementation. Approximately one month
after program implementation and on a quarterly basis thereafter, the team’s leadership will
administer a blended evaluation instrument (Appendix F). In these evaluation instruments,
participants will indicate their ratings about contributing factors of the program’s content and
relevance (Level 1), their confidence and perceived challenges of applying the learning to their
work (Level 2), their application on the job and support they receive or anticipate receiving
(Level 3), and the extent to which their performance and outcomes have increased (Level 4).
Data Analysis and Reporting
The New World Kirkpatrick Model emphasizes that formative and summative data are
collected at each of the four levels (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016). The data are analyzed
around whether they meet expectations and whether the outcomes did or did not meet
expectations and the reasons for those outcomes. After immediate and delayed instruments are
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 197

administered, reporting must show impact and be compelling. The business results of program
implementation are seen at Level 4 of the Kirkpatrick Model.
The results of this learning program will be monitored by the ultimate impact on
outcomes. Individual fundraising metrics will be reported monthly by the university.
Brandiam’s team of development officers will track data on key measures to use as a monitoring
and accountability tool. The outcomes that will be closely monitored during and after the
learning program will be compiled as dashboards (Appendix G). On a monthly basis, the team
lead will review the internal outcomes of total dollars raised for the school during the fiscal year
and number of donor updates filed per development officer. Also, the team will monitor external
and internal outcomes on an annual basis to compare the total number of donors to the school,
number of students aided by scholarships as a result of donations, and average tenure of the
frontline fundraising staff.
Summary
The New World Kirkpatrick Model (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016) was used to plan,
implement, and evaluate a recommended learning program for the organization. This program
was designed by keeping in mind the end goal of optimizing the achievement of development
officers, as a unit, to raise $100 million by July 2022. The targeted outcomes of the organization
guided the program’s design in a cascading manner. Level 4 results were aligned with the
appropriate Level 3 behavior, Level 2 learning, and Level 1 reactions of participants to increase
the likelihood of their engagement with the program throughout its implementation and monitor
for improvement during and after execution.
The concept of return on expectations is a cornerstone of the Kirkpatrick Model and
points to the leading indicators identified for Level 4 results. A program can be evaluated on its
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 198

return on expectations, which is the degree to which a program meets the expectations of the
business stakeholders (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016). In addition to informing the planning
and implementation of a learning program, the Kirkpatrick framework incorporates a blended
evaluation approach. Blended evaluation instruments are used to measure multiple levels of the
program within each evaluation tool and can be used at multiple points during and after
implementation of the program (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016). Rather than wait to evaluate
participants’ reactions and learning until after a program is completely implemented, the
Kirkpatrick framework integrates implementation and evaluation throughout the learning
program. Therefore, this framework provides an additional advantage of conducting formative
and summative evaluations during and after implementation. When participants’ reactions at
Level 1 and learning at Level 2 are measured during the program, training facilitators will have
immediate opportunities to adjust aspects of the program and enhance participants’ engagement
with the program before completing implementation. The Kirkpatrick framework also allows for
delayed evaluation in order to evaluate Level 3 behavior for on-the-job application and support.
Finally, evaluation of Level 4 results will begin one month after completing the program
followed by at least three quarterly follow-up evaluations. These evaluations will provide
feedback about the value of the program by indicating the degree to which participants have
sustained the knowledge, skills, and attitudes they acquired through the program and whether the
program has met the expectations of key business stakeholders about improving targeted
outcomes.
Future Research
This study involved intentional and specific boundary decisions about the methodology,
sample size, and criteria to interview current development officers at the Brandiam School and to
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 199

review the professional development catalogue of training workshops available at the institution
over a four-month-long period. The limitations and delimitations of the study addressed in
Chapter Three provided implicit recommendations for future studies. Further research would
collect interview data from development officers who were recently but no longer employed at
Brandiam. An expanded sampling criterion would provide different perspectives that could
build upon and provide additional information with which to compare the findings discussed in
this study. In addition, the project was limited to documents that were publicly available. A
further study would include a review of internal documents that tracked fundraising activity.
This would provide a further exploration of the knowledge and motivation influences of
development officers about the performance metrics that were formally reported internally across
the institution.
Topics emerged from this study that would benefit from further research. An
unanticipated finding from this study was the influence that technology had on development
officers’ performance. The organizational gaps around the use of these tools impacted
development officers’ knowledge and motivation to utilize them, which impacted their
performance, evaluations of their performance-to-goals, and motivation to learn and improve.
Performance affects individuals’ intentions to stay in their role at their organizations. Therefore,
further research would explore these tools as influences that facilitate or hinder development
officers’ performance. Studies that explore customizing development officers’ experiences, such
as personalizing their incentives and career pathing opportunities, would be additional areas for
further research to improve development officers’ levels of motivation and intent to stay at their
institution and in the field of fundraising. Another opportunity for future research would be to
build upon the findings from this study that suggested development officers’ knowledge and self-
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 200

efficacy generally increased with their length of experience in the field of fundraising. Research
with a larger sample size would be recommended to address this finding. Furthermore, as a
result of the findings in this study, future research would stratify in more depth the different lived
experiences and needs of development officers by years of tenure.
The literature review indicated that large fundraising campaigns are becoming more
commonplace and fundraising roles are growing more complex at institutions of higher
education. These factors will continue to place increasing pressure on development officers and
their organizations. This study was conducted with stakeholders in an organization during the
later stages of a comprehensive fundraising campaign. An opportunity for further research
would be to conduct a longitudinal study of the experiences of development officers at different
stages of a fundraising campaign. Moreover, organizational culture was found to be an
important context specific influence on development officers and an important factor in
fundraising for building and retaining relationships with donors. I would recommend conducting
a similar study in different contexts within the same or similar institutions to build upon,
compare, and contrast the findings from this study and further contribute to the field of
knowledge about development officers’ experiences and improving on them.
Conclusion
The purpose of this study was to conduct a needs analysis of the knowledge and skills,
motivation, and organizational resources necessary for development officers at Brandiam to
achieve their goal of raising $100 million, as a unit, by July 2022. Development officers were
charged with raising scholarship funds to assist with recruiting and retaining a diverse and
talented student body to their institution of higher education. The achievement of this goal
would complete the Brandiam School’s comprehensive fundraising campaign to raise $500
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 201

million. This problem was important to address because of the growing need for institutions of
higher education to raise philanthropic support. Organizations that can support and retain
development officers to be efficient and effective in philanthropic fundraising have a higher
likelihood of achieving their fundraising goals. The Clark and Estes (2008) gap analysis
framework was used to address the study’s purpose and understand stakeholder performance
through the analysis of knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences. Chapter Four
presented key findings about the assets and remaining needs of development officers’
knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences to achieve the collective fundraising goal.
Chapter Five provided an integrated implementation and evaluation plan with recommendations
for practice. The New World Kirkpatrick Model (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016) was used to
guide the development of a recommended two-part learning program for the organization that
kept in mind the end goal of optimizing the achievement of development officers, as a unit, to
raise $100 million by July 2022. The implications for practice included opportunities to focus on
context-specific influences on development officers and evaluate leading indicators, key drivers,
and critical components of learning and organizational support.
Development officers need to have knowledge, motivation, and organizational resources
to effectively engage in fundraising work. This study pointed to development officers needing to
have knowledge of how to conduct fundraising, knowing how to evaluate and improve their
fundraising skills, valuing having individual goals, feeling efficacious about fundraising, having
tools to easily record and gauge one’s fundraising activity, being provided with honest evaluation
and feedback, having role models who work effectively and efficiency through phases of the
fundraising cycle, and having the cultural models and cultural settings to support their
fundraising efforts, learning, and growth. With the appropriate strategic support, development
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 202

officers will achieve success in fulfilling their philanthropic fundraising goals and they, in turn,
will support others through their work. The organization, then, will enhance its capacity and
retention of effective development officers. Ultimately, the organization will be better
positioned to strengthen its relationships with donors, build on the team’s knowledge and skills,
sustain and increase development officers’ motivation, and facilitate its plans and ambitions for
the school by providing more opportunities to support a diverse educational community of high
performing and high potential students and, thereby, further advance the school’s mission to
educate and train leaders to improve business and society at large.

STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 203

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Appendix A: Interview Protocol
Introductory Language
I want to thank you for taking time out of your schedule to meet with me and agreeing to
participate in my study by answering some questions. This interview will take about an hour,
although we have allocated an hour and half in case we need extra time.
I am currently enrolled in a doctoral program at USC and am conducting a needs analysis
study on development officers in higher education. Our role is critical in raising funds to support
and advance the school and to expand opportunities for current and future students. I am not
here as an employee of this organization or to make a professional assessment or judgment of
your performance as a leader or as a development officer. I would like to emphasize that today I
am only here as a researcher collecting data for my study. The information you share with me
will be placed into my study as part of the data collection. This interview is completely
confidential and your name will not be disclosed to anyone or anywhere outside the scope of this
study and will be known only to me specifically for this data collection. While I may use a direct
quote from you in my study, I will not provide your name specifically and will make the best
effort possible to remove any potentially identifying information. I will gladly provide you with
a copy of my final product upon request.
Your participation is entirely voluntary. You may skip any questions you don’t want to
answer and you may stop this interview at any time. During the interview, I will be using a
recording device to help me capture all of your responses accurately and completely. This
recording will not be shared with anyone outside the scope of this project. If you would like me
to stop recording at any point, I will do so. The recording will be transferred to my password-
protected files on a cloud file storage account and will be deleted from the recording device
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 224

immediately upon transfer. I will transcribe the recording. The recording and all other data will
then be destroyed after three years from the date my dissertation defense is approved.
With that, do you have any questions about the study before we get started? If not, please
review and keep the information sheet.
I would like your permission to begin the interview. May I also have your permission to
record this conversation? Thank you.
Setting the Stage
1. When did you start working as a frontline fundraiser at Brandiam?
2. What did you study (major, degree) in school?
3. Before coming to Brandiam:
a. What was your professional experience with fundraising, if any?
b. How long have you worked in fields other than fundraising, if any?
Interview Questions
I would now like to ask you some questions about fundraising practices.
4. How do you know what to fundraise for at the Brandiam School? [K-P, O-CM]
a. How do you know what to prioritize?
5. In terms of a process, what steps of a fundraising solicitation cycle do you typically follow, if
any? [K-P]
a. Follow-up probe: What are the phases in that model?
b. Follow-up probe: How have you identified prospective donors for the Brandiam
School? [K-C, O-CS]
6. Have you closed a gift at Brandiam?
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 225

a. If yes: If you remember, approximately how long were you on the job when you
closed your first gift?
i. Follow-up probe: To what do you most attribute to that achievement?
b. If yes: Think about any gift that you have closed. Walk me through the actual
steps you took from first identifying that prospective donor to closing the gift.
[K-P]
i. Follow-up probe: In which phase (identification, qualification, cultivation,
solicitation, stewardship) of the fundraising cycle did you first interact
with that prospective donor? [K-P]
ii. Follow-up probe: How was the gift amount decided?
iii. Follow-up probe: How was the gift designation decided?
iv. Follow-up probe: What resources or people were helpful to you during
this process?
7. During a regular work week, how would you categorize the buckets of time you spend on
work? [K-P, O-CS]
a. Follow-up probe: In a typical work week, how would you describe the
approximate breakdown of how you spend your time on the phases of the
fundraising cycle? For example, 50% of your time might be on stewardship
activities, 25% on cultivation, and so on. [K-P]
8. On a scale of 1-4 [display a visual of the scale: 1 strongly disagree, 2 somewhat disagree, 3
somewhat agree, 4 strongly agree], what is your level of agreement with the following
statement about each of the five phases of the fundraising cycle? “I know what actions I
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 226

need to take in the ___ phase that will move the donor onto the next phase of the fundraising
cycle.” [K-P, M-SE]
a. Identification
b. Qualification
c. Cultivation
d. Solicitation
e. Stewardship
9. Using the same 1-4 scale (1 strongly disagree, 2 somewhat disagree, 3 somewhat agree, 4
strongly agree), please indicate your level of agreement with the following statement
(adapted from Edgington, 2013): “If asked to fundraise for a specific initiative/program, I
would know how to ultimately achieve a successful outcome.” [M-SE, K-M]
10. Using the same 1-4 scale (1 strongly disagree, 2 somewhat disagree, 3 somewhat agree, 4
strongly agree), what is your level of agreement with the following statement about each of
the five phases of the fundraising cycle? “I am comfortable working through the __ phase.”
[M-SE, K-P]
a. Identification
b. Qualification
c. Cultivation
d. Solicitation
e. Stewardship
f. Follow-up probe: In what area do you feel most skilled?
g. Follow-up probe: In what area do you feel you have the most room for growth?
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 227

Building skills around fundraising can help the school to more efficiently achieve
the ultimate goal of enhancing educational experiences and opportunities for students, who
will lead the next generation. So, I would now like to ask you some questions about
training and professional development.
11. When you were first hired as a frontline fundraiser at Brandiam, were you given any formal
orientation/onboarding on how to conduct fundraising for Brandiam? [K-C, O-CS]
a. If yes: Please, tell me more about this.
i. Was any of this required?
b. If no: Was any onboarding, training, or information offered to you?
i. If yes: Tell me about this.
12. What professional development resources, if any, are currently offered at Brandiam for
development officers to learn about fundraising (i.e., training sessions, courses, workshops,
delivered in any format, live or online)? [O-CS]
a. How did you learn about these offerings?
b. Which professional development resources have you used, if any, over the past 12
months?
i. Tell me more about this/these.
ii. If none: Tell me more about the reasons for this.
c. During your entire tenure as a fundraiser at Brandiam, which, if any, professional
development resources/trainings have been most useful to you? [O-CS]
i. Follow-up probe: What did you find most useful?
13. Imagine that every development officer is required to take a fundraising-related training
seminar this month. What area of training would be most valuable to you? [K-M, M-SE]
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 228

a. Follow-up probe: Please, tell me more about why you chose this area.
b. When, if ever, do you seek out professional development/training?
14. If you wanted to improve your skills in fundraising, how would you go about trying to do
this? [O-CM, M-SE, K-M]
a. How much time, if any, are you given to evaluate or reflect on your performance?
15. Imagine that progress has stalled with a prospect with whom you are working. What do you
do, if anything, to get help on strategizing your next steps? [O-CS]
a. Follow-up probe: Are there any people that you regularly go to for guidance?
Now, I would like to ask you some questions about performance goals.
16. Do you have any fundraising performance goals for the current year? [M-V, O-CM]
a. If yes: How clearly do you understand what your fundraising performance goals
are for the current year? [M-V]
b. What kinds of documented performance goals, if any, do you, as a development
officer, have for the current year? [M-V, O-CM]
c. How are your individual performance goals established at work? [O-CS]
d. Follow-up probe: Tell me about how, if at all, your supervisor is involved in the
goal-setting process. [O-CS]
e. In what settings, if any, are your performance-to-goals specifically
discussed/reviewed? [O-CS]
17. How is individual performance tracked/monitored against fundraising goals?
a. Follow-up probe: By whom?
b. Follow-up probe: How do you monitor your performance against these goals?
18. How do you measure your “success” in fundraising? [M-V]
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 229

a. How do your own measures of success differ, if at all, from how you are
evaluated by your supervisor? [O-CS]
b. How well aligned are your current fundraising performance goals with what you
think your goals should be for your job? [M-V]
c. Within the past month, how, if it all, did you evaluate your job performance in
terms of fundraising? [K-M]
19. What is your opinion about the usefulness of performance evaluations?
I would like to ask you some questions about performance reviews and feedback.
20. Have you had at least one performance check-in/review with your supervisor at Brandiam?
[O-CM]
a. If yes: When was the last time you had a performance evaluation meeting? [O-
CM]
b. Follow-up probe: What did that look like? [O-CM]
c. How were your goals used in your performance evaluation, if at all? [O-CM]
21. What kind of feedback tells you about your effectiveness as a development officer? [K-M,
O-CM]
a. What feedback would you want from your supervisor to better understand how
he/she would describe your effectiveness in fundraising?
b. When was the last time, if ever, you were given this type of feedback? [O-CM]
c. Do you seek out feedback about your effectiveness as a fundraiser? [K-M, M-SE]
d. If yes: Tell me more about what this looks like. What and how do you gather
feedback? [M-SE]
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 230

22. Have you received any instructions or tips from your supervisor about what you can do to
improve your fundraising performance? [O-CM]
a. If yes: Tell me more about this.
b. When considering your most recent performance check-in/review at Brandiam,
how satisfied were you with the quality of instructions/tips you were given about
what you can do to improve your fundraising performance?
23. In your opinion, what is the primary metric that is valued in this department? [O-CM]
a. Follow-up probe: Tell me more about this.
Closing Questions
Before we conclude, I would like to ask a question about retention and turnover,
then open the last question to you.
24. How does turnover of development officers impact the organization? [O-CM, O-CS, M-SE]
a. Follow-up probe: What do you believe are the most significant impacts of the
retention of development officers on the organization?
25. Is there anything you would like to add that would help to address this inquiry about the
needs of development officers to do well and stay at Brandiam?
Closing, Thank You, Follow Up
Thank you. That concludes the interview. Again, I will transcribe our conversation and
store it as I had mentioned earlier to protect your confidentiality and anonymity. Please do not
hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns about any of this study. Again, your
participation is voluntary and very much appreciated. Thank you for your time and participation
in this research to improve our field and, ultimately, to better serve the beneficiaries of the hard
work of fundraising.
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 231

Appendix B: Document Review Protocol
I. Pre-Review Notes and Reminders
 Research Questions
1. What are development officers’ knowledge and motivation related to raising $100
million, as a unit, by July 2022?
2. What is the interaction between Brandiam School’s (pseudonym) organizational
culture and context and development officers’ knowledge and motivation related to
raising $100 million, as a unit, by July 2022 and, ultimately, for the organization to
enhance capacity and retention of high performing development officers?
3. What are the recommendations for practice?

 Type of Document: Webpage
 Goal of This Review: Compile list of fundraising-related trainings and workshops
available to development officers at Brandiam
 Source of This Document (from where or how this was collected): Advancement
website
 Relevance, if any, of Timing of This Review:

II. Review Notes
[Observer Notes: (()) = observer comments]

 Day & Date:
 Start and End Time:
 Elements of Interest in This Document (note reflections and questions in case
participants bring up details during interviews):

Description of Workshop(s)

Day,
Date, and
Time of
Workshop

Participants Noted in This
Document (list participants
and titles)

Applicable Audience
(e.g., managers,
development
officers)
Addresses
Knowledge,
Motivation, or
Organizational
Factors

STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 232

III. Post-Review Notes
 Reflections, questions, frequently used terms or references:

STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 233

Appendix C: Immediate Evaluation Instrument
Strongly
Disagree
Somewhat
Disagree
Neutral Somewhat
Agree
Strongly
Agree
1. This unit held my interest. 1 2 3 4 5
2. The pace of this unit was
satisfactory.
1 2 3 4 5
3. The unit’s content is
applicable to my work.
1 2 3 4 5
4. The unit covered the factual
knowledge I need to be
successful.
1 2 3 4 5
5. This unit was a worthwhile
use of my time.
1 2 3 4 5
6. I know where I can find
additional help after I get back
to my job.
1 2 3 4 5

7. Please describe the unit’s material that was most relevant to your learning.

8. Was there anything about your experience that interfered with your learning? If so, what?

STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 234

Appendix D: Participant Pulse Check Completed During Training

Strongly
Disagree
Somewhat
Disagree
Neutral Somewhat
Agree
Strongly
Agree
1. I took responsibility for
being involved in today’s
session.
1 2 3 4 5
2. The pace of today’s session
was satisfactory.
1 2 3 4 5
3. The content is applicable to
my work.
1 2 3 4 5
4. I will see an immediate
impact if I consistently apply
what I have learned.
1 2 3 4 5
5. I know where I can find
additional help after I get back
to my job.
1 2 3 4 5

6. Was there anything about your experience that interfered with your learning today? If so,
what?

STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 235

Appendix E: Blended Instrument for Use Immediately Following the Learning Program
Instructions:

● For these questions, please use the following rating scale:

None or
very low level
Low level Moderate level High level Very high level
1 2 3 4 5

● Please circle the appropriate rating before and after the learning program.
● Please provide comments to explain your ratings.

Before the
program
I had/have the... After the
program
1 2 3 4 5

Comments:

1. Knowledge of every phase of the fundraising
solicitation cycle (from identification to
stewardship)
1 2 3 4 5

Comments:
1 2 3 4 5

Comments:

2. Knowledge to assign the appropriate fundraising
phase to each of my assigned donors
1 2 3 4 5

Comments:
1 2 3 4 5

Comments:

3. Confidence to meet my fundraising goals 1 2 3 4 5

Comments:
STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 236

1 2 3 4 5

Comments:

4. Commitment to regularly incorporate reflective
practices into my work
1 2 3 4 5

Comments:
1 2 3 4 5

Comments:

5. Commitment to proactively seek timely feedback
from colleagues to improve my fundraising
performance
1 2 3 4 5

Comments:

6. From what you learned in this program, what is the first thing you will apply on the job to
improve your fundraising performance?

7. What barriers do you anticipate that could limit your success at applying what you learned?

8. What additional help would you like in order to be successful?

STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 237

Appendix F: Blended Instrument to Use for Delayed Use After the Learning Program
1. What changes, if any, have you seen since the program was implemented?

Not Sure Disagree Agree
● I have increased the number of
interactions I have had with donors.
1 2 3
● Our work team has increased the number
of staff meetings we have in which we
discuss fundraising strategies about our
interactions with donors.
1 2 3
● I have had more staff meetings in which
I have discussed improving my own
fundraising performance.
1 2 3
● I have improved my job performance. 1 2 3

2. How much have the following factors helped you implement what you have learned?

Contributing Factor Not at all Low Medium High
● The program itself 1 2 3 4
● Job aids 1 2 3 4
● Coaching from my supervisor 1 2 3 4
● Peer support and encouragement 1 2 3 4
● Effective system of accountability or
monitoring
1 2 3 4
● My belief that it would help me to be
more effective in my work
1 2 3 4

STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 238

3. If you have encountered any challenges in applying what you learned to your work, please
indicate the reasons (check all that apply):
__ I do not have the necessary knowledge and skills.
__ I do not have a clear picture of what is expected of me.
__ I have other, higher priorities.
__ I do not have the necessary resources to apply what I learned.
__ I do not have the support to apply what I learned.
__ The program did not give me the confidence to apply what I learned.
__ I do not think what I learned will work.
__ There is not an adequate system of accountability to ensure application of what I learned.
__ Other (please explain any challenges and possible solutions to overcome them):

4. What else do you need to successfully perform the skills you learned in the program while on
the job?

STRATEGIC SUPPORT FOR FUNDRAISING 239

Appendix G: Data Analysis Charts
1. Dashboards Reviewed on a Monthly Basis:

2. Dashboards Reviewed on an Annual Basis:

Abstract (if available)

Abstract With decreased funding, rising costs, and increased competition, institutions of higher education face a heightened need to raise funds from private philanthropic sources to sustain their programs and services. Development officers have become vital to shoring up financial gaps. Educational fundraising generally involves cultivating positive relationships with charitable donors over time. It is important for organizations to support and retain development officers to be efficient and effective in philanthropic fundraising. This study explored the needs of development officers at the Brandiam School, a pseudonym. Their highest priority was to fundraise for scholarships to support the recruitment and retention of a diverse and talented student body. The Clark and Estes (2008) gap analysis framework was adopted for a needs analysis of the knowledge and skills, motivation, and organizational resources necessary for development officers to achieve their fundraising goal. The findings from this study revealed an asset of self-efficacy and remaining needs of development officers’ procedural knowledge of the fundraising solicitation cycle, metacognitive knowledge about evaluating and improving their fundraising skills, value orientation about individual goals, and organizational influences that were specific to the context. The New World Kirkpatrick Model (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016) was used to design an integrated implementation and evaluation plan with recommendations for practice. The recommended two-part learning program was designed around the end goal of optimizing development officers’ performance in philanthropic fundraising and, ultimately, for the organization to enhance capacity and retention of high performing development officers to maximize their positive impact through education.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Chan Velasco, Lori Kathleen (author)

Core Title Strategic support for philanthropic fundraising: a needs analysis of development officers in higher education

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Organizational Change and Leadership (On Line)

Publication Date 07/25/2019

Defense Date 06/17/2019

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag charitable donors,Clark and Estes,collaboration,cultural models,cultural settings,development officers,donor cultivation,donor identification,donor qualification,donor stewardship,enhance capacity,Fundraising,fundraising metrics,fundraising performance,fundraising skills,fundraising solicitation cycle,gap analysis,gift closing,gift solicitation,goal setting,Higher education,knowledge exchange,knowledge influences,learning program,metacognitive knowledge,motivation influences,needs analysis,New World Kirkpatrick Model,OAI-PMH Harvest,onboarding,optimize performance,organizational influences,performance evaluation,performance feedback,philanthropic fundraising,procedural knowledge,professional development,retention,scholarship,self-efficacy,strategic support,support,Training,value orientation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Seli, Helena (committee chair), Campbell, Deanna (committee member), Stowe, Kathy (committee member)

Creator Email lorichan@usc.edu,lorivelasco@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-192322

Unique identifier UC11662645

Identifier etd-ChanVelasc-7620.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-192322 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-ChanVelasc-7620.pdf

Dmrecord 192322

Document Type Dissertation

Format application/pdf (imt)

Rights Chan Velasco, Lori Kathleen

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA