AAMC Reporter: September 2005

Jonathan Ravdin, M.D., chair, University of Minnesota Medical School (UMMS) department of medicine; Deborah Powell, M.D., UMMS dean; and John Kersey, M.D., director, UM Cancer Center, accept a pledge from the Masonic Cancer Center Fund

"Cheerleader-in-Chief" Role Grows as Revenues Decrease

By Gina Shaw, Special to the Reporter

The usual revenue streams for medical schools have been increasingly dry over the past decade. Clinical revenue is down. State budgets are tight. And this year, for the first time in more than two decades, the proposed appropriation for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is expected to lag inflation. In real dollars, the NIH will receive less money (and have less to give) than it did last year. In such an environment, the role of private philanthropy and fundraising is becoming ever more important to medical schools' ability to sustain and grow their programs and take advantage of unprecedented scientific opportunities.

"Extraordinary gifts," or gifts of $1 million or more are growing in importance to medical schools' philanthropy budgets. The AAMC's annual development survey tracks the continued increase of these gifts, with 466 such gifts reported last year. Major gifts, as well as the ongoing commitment of supporters who donate regularly at less stratospheric levels, increasingly require the intense involvement of medical school deans, department chairs, and other faculty leaders as well as the schools' fundraising staff. Charting the growth of development programs at major medical schools, both public and private, underscores the escalating importance of the dean's role as "cheerleader-in-chief" for philanthropy.

In the early and mid-1990s, the Minnesota Medical Foundation, the private fundraising arm of the University of Minnesota Medical School, was "about a $25 million-per-year organization," said Brad Choate, the foundation's president and CEO. After the institution's most recent major fundraising effort, "Campaign Minnesota," which ended in 2003, that figure had doubled to $50 million per year. This year, it was $78 million—and there is no end in sight.

"A critical component in making that occur will be the very intense involvement of the dean, department heads, and other academic leaders," Choate said.

At Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, the last dean's campaign—focused on research goals in genetics, structural biology, and neuroscience—garnered $200 million. The current campaign, centered around clinical sciences and funding a new ambulatory care building, aims to raise $750 million at the end of next year, said Larry Schafer, vice president and vice provost for development at Weill Cornell and at New York Presbyterian Hospital.

Similar plans are in the works at Stanford University School of Medicine, reported Dean Philip Pizzo, M.D. Under the banner of the school's strategic mission, "Translating Discoveries," a new fundraising campaign organized around key themes like stem cell biology and regenerative medicine, aims to raise a minimum of $1.3 billion over the next six years.

"Our annual leadership retreat in January, which brings together about 80 faculty leaders, department chairs, dean's staff, hospital leaders, and trustees, will be largely focused on what we must do to make this campaign succeed," said Pizzo.

A Changing Job Description

It was not always this way. While fundraising has long been at least a small part of the dean's job description, over the past 10 years it has taken on more importance, often accounting for 30 percent or more of a dean's time and a growing share of the time of department chairs as well.

"I spend a lot more time here on various fundraising activities than I did even a few years ago, when I was dean in Kansas. It's changed that much in a very short time—and I don't think it's because I came to a different place. I think the need has really escalated," said Minnesota's Dean Deborah Powell, M.D.

And the need for development training for deans has grown correspondingly, said Douglas Stewart, associate vice president for medical development and alumni affairs at Stanford. For some 10 years, he has been training deans from all areas of academe in fundraising and has chaired the Council for Advancement and Support of Education's (CASE) "Development for Deans" conference for much of that time. He estimates that he has trained about 2,000 deans over the years.

"It's enormously different now: the expectation that deans will spend a substantial amount of their time on fundraising has increased dramatically. It's now usually a major part of the job description for deans, and in some cases for department chairs, and that just wasn't the case 10 years ago," Stewart said.

It is important to make sure that development duties do not fall solely on the dean or CEO, agrees Elliot Sussman, M.D., president and CEO of the Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network in Pennsylvania. The responsibility for articulating a compelling vision for a medical school or teaching hospital, one that inspires donors to want to offer support, also lies with the senior faculty and medical staff who lead those programs.

"You can be more successful in your campaigns if they are widely coordinated among the various people at the medical school and the hospital," he said. "Fundraising, after all, is all about relationships. Who is best suited to provide an opportunity to a new or existing donor? Although the relationship with the donor should be a strong institutional one, the face of that relationship should be someone the donor knows."

At the University of Minnesota as well, department chairs are a growing part of the fundraising mix. "The foundation has arranged for key faculty members and department chairs to be coached by an outside consulting group on their role in philanthropy; the first session was highly successful, and we're already planning the second. Participants were very enthusiastic and responsive," reported Powell.

"We'd like to hold two or three of these sessions a year to help department chairs and senior faculty understand their roles in philanthropy, everything from cultivating grateful patients, to communicating with people interested in a particular area of research, to speaking with scholarship supporters," Powell said.

Similarly, the AAMC is planning additional fundraising workshops for deans and faculty in 2006 in its ongoing effort to provide professional support and assistance to member institutions' development programs.

John Schreiber, M.D., M.P.H., signed on last year as the Ruben-Benston chair in pediatric community health and head of pediatrics at Minnesota and has been actively involved with fundraising from the beginning. Every department has its challenges when it comes to generating income, he noted, but pediatrics may be particularly vulnerable since so many children in the United States are on public insurance.

"In order to recruit talented young people to the field and generate new knowledge, philanthropic dollars are very important," Schreiber said.

Faculty members at Weill Cornell learn early on that fundraising is an essential part of their mission, according to Larry Schafer. "The culture here is one in which faculty understand that what turns us from good to great is philanthropy. They come here knowing that," he said. Weill Cornell Dean Antonio Gotto, M.D., has an advisory council made up of donors of $100,000 or more to the dean's campaign; senior faculty are frequently invited to address meetings of this council about their programs. "We just did a major event with the New York hedge fund community, and the dean asked one of the department chairs to speak about genetic medicine. They meet with donors all the time under the dean's leadership."

A Major Commitment

Ultimately, a medical school's success in generating philanthropic support is closely tied to the involvement of its dean and senior faculty.

"In the programs that have been successful over the years in really raising a lot of money, the deans and other academic leaders of those programs have been integrally involved in the process," said Brad Choate.

"This begins with developing a clear and compelling academic vision so the real process, the real work for a dean and other academic leaders, starts long before you ever sit down and have lunch with someone," Choate said.

The work can be challenging and time-consuming, said Powell. Time is especially critical when it comes to building relationships. How does she handle it?

"I try to pace myself; I want to be genuinely on point when I talk to people. If I can't do it in a genuine way because I'm tired or overstretched, then I don't think I'm most effective. You have to recognize the importance of this but also the importance of doing it well," Powell said.

Department chairs, too, are struggling with the balance between their programmatic responsibilities and the new challenges of fundraising. It is a tough juggling act, said Schreiber, who compares running his pediatrics department to heading up a $60 million business with 110 employees.

"I still have a research lab, and I still do clinical medicine, though much less than I used to," Schreiber said. "But I actually find the development side of things fun. It gives me the opportunity to articulate my excitement about what the future holds and the promise we see for making children better."

That enthusiasm is critical, for deans and faculty alike. The most important thing to understand about fundraising, said Pizzo, is that it is not just a transaction.

"Fundraising is not something that happens because you meet someone and ask them to help you. It's about building a message, building connections, talking with people, and trying to engage them in what we do," Pizzo said. "It grows over time and requires that we build donors' confidence and give them a sense that their contributions to our programs will yield results."

Contact Us    © 1995-2008 AAMC    Terms and Conditions    Privacy Statement