Episode 102: Education vs Experience in Philanthropy - What is most valued

Welcome to another edition of "Around with Randall", your weekly podcast for making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and Founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett.

I want to thank you for joining me, Randall, on this podcasts edition of "Around with Randall." The conversation of this particular episode started with me listening to one of my favorite podcasts. Every day I try to listen as I walk, either morning or afternoon, to the Clark Howard Show, who is a financial Guru who's been doing this for 30, 40, 50 years, television, radio. He does a podcast for about 35-40 minutes a day on various economic issues, and one episode here recently dealt with college and he told the story of him going to a series of meetings with his youngest child, regarding going to college. And really it was what can the student be doing, what can the family be doing to prepare for the financial challenges of college. And what he came out of it was, what he came out with that particular experience is they mentioned things like volunteering in clubs and things of that nature, but what he noted was is that there wasn't a discussion about work, a job, and that he's a big believer in his children having jobs when they got to 15, 16 years old. But the colleges maybe not valuing them that much, which led me to think a little bit about our industry. And then shortly thereafter, ironically, I was having a conversation with a Young fundraiser Who challenged some things going on in the office and part of the work that I do, and finally commented that you know she had a degree in philanthropy, and I put the two together.

After some reflection, a little discernment, and came to the conclusion that this might be worthy of a discussion. Before I move forward let me go back. Anybody who's been doing this as long as I have, so I'm 25 years this year into the profession, there were no degrees in philanthropy when I started. In fact when you get older people like myself, maybe I'll say more experienced although older seems to fit me, you run into a million stories of how they got into philanthropy, into fundraising. Strange stories. Maybe they were a volunteer and somebody left a job and they had to pick it up and realize that they loved it but they were doing something totally different. Or possibly somebody recommended, hey have you ever thought about doing this we need some help. In my case I tell the story of the $10,000 beer where in law school I stood up and wanted to ask my classmates to help reinvigorate the idea of a class gift, which was more prominent in the early part of the 20th century, and I asked them all over our third year of law school for money, and including if we met the goal I would guzzle a beer in front of everyone in a black tie event the night before graduation. And you'd be surprised how quickly those pledges were made because I didn't drink then and I don't drink now. But I think they were highly entertained by the by the thought and then the action.

We all came into this industry in different manners and now there is a formalization of the process through education, which by the way is a good thing because I think the professionalization of philanthropy and fundraising, and I look up to people like Gerald Panas and others who were doing this, Hank Russo, who were doing this well before I was. They didn't have any education. They learned on the job and they wrote about it, and kind of began a sense of informal education as to how we can be better at what we do. Now you can get degrees in philanthropy. Columbia University in New York offers a master's degree in this. The University of London offer Masters in this. Places like Central Michigan and Northeastern offer degrees in the in philanthropy. The University of Oregon offers a masters. USC offers Masters. There are countless what I'll call certification programs, and I can't even tell you how many universities. You can go, it be certified of course, the bellwether's the Lily school at IUPUI in Indianapolis they're the furthest along by far in terms of of formal education and philanthropy. All of that's good but the question becomes, does that education overrule or outweigh practical experience? And that becomes a more interesting conversation.

I remember when I went to law school there were some unique aspects to my educational pursuit. I knew going into law school when I applied and started I didn't want to practice. I went all through law school not wanting to practice and eventually graduated law school not wanting to practice. That had an effect on my decision-making when I was in law school because my career goal, and if you've listened to a podcast or two early on, was actually to be the president of the NCAA. In many ways I'm glad I don't have that responsibility in today's crazy world but that was the goal. But law school and then the Masters in Business that I was doing would be catalysts for that. But I knew practical experience would be just as important. So in law school I had a fellowship and an internship. I had plenty of opportunities to volunteer to be engaged with College athletics at different levels, and what that worked into was one of my first jobs. Really, my first job was as an interim assistant athletic director. All right. I learned quickly after two years it probably wasn't the right fit and moved into education, and then thus into healthcare. The reason I tell that story is that there's a pairing of education and work. And what's interesting is is those of us who are old enough, more senior, who are probably more in leadership positions don't have the education and yet we have a group of new, outstanding, hard-working, driving young professionals who are coming with an educational background that we don't know or understand.

There's evidence that says having a college degree obviously is critically important. When we look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics we learn that those with higher educational degrees, Masters and above, can earn just short of more than $2,000 per week more than somebody without that degree. Or that if you have a bachelor's degree you're going to earn $1,300 a week more than somebody with a high school degree. And we're seeing job descriptions now written that talk about you need an education or the equivalent experience. We also can look at some of the work done through various associations that it's becoming harder and harder in philanthropy, particularly in a gift officer position, to enter into the profession without some type of degree. I'm not saying a philanthropic degree but a college degree. It's becoming more and more required, where I think 10-15 years ago I think there were more options for those that are working. So what is it that really I want to, I want to get to? And maybe cause you to think about, really, this may be more designed for younger Professionals in our industry, what is it that you need beyond that education? What is it that's going to make you more valuable in terms of a potential job or your current job? What is it that those of us who don't have a philanthropy degree are looking at when we're hiring beyond your education? How do you elevate yourself in your career?

If you're early on, and I told the story of law school and in my experience wanting to be the president of the NCAA at a young professional age because I knew that the entry point for that possibility would rely more on practical experience than it actually would education. Education would elevate me down the road and that's why I did the internship at the Foundation at the Athletic Foundation at the University of Missouri Kansas City for two years. That internship provided a window into the actual work. What's ironic is as many of my law school classmates going through law school, some doing incredibly well academically, they learned very quickly because I've heard a million stories about this from them that law school doesn't really prepare you to be a lawyer, it provides the gateway. It provides the necessary kind of knowledge. But to be a lawyer is different than being a law school student. And in some ways I saw the same parallels in athletics. The Athletic Foundation at UMKC gave me opportunities to actually do athletic work, kind of in the marketing fundraising area, and then that led into my first job. I think the thing that I would tell people and I've got a couple of younger clients that I work with is, I tell them you have to be willing to start at the bottom. I started my career in philanthropy specifically by hanging banners and dropping off flyers for the athletic foundation for the basketball program, and the basketball at the basketball games in around town for tickets. It wasn't glamorous but it was highly helpful in getting a baseline understanding of what it meant to build relationships with corporate sponsors. By starting at the bottom you learn from the ground up and maybe that includes volunteering, maybe the opportunity to work in an office paid or unpaid may give you an opening that other people don't necessarily have.

Going back to Clark Howard, that's what he talks about in terms of why jobs are important. The skills you learn when you physically do, when you're ultimately responsible, even if it's for something very small, the willingness and the the the opportunity to own that outcome. The other thing I would say is that in, particularly in in philanthropy, and sometimes this is a detriment, is there needs to be a willingness to move around a little bit. Unfortunately, and I think this is maybe more so in philanthropy than other professional areas, is that people try to demonstrate and articulate their desires for upward mobility but yet sometimes the internal workings of an organization don't allow for someone's growth at the level that it could be, and as a result the only way they can get to where they want to go is to leave. Now, I think that that can be problematic at times because that means turnover, and that we've talked about job issues with that multiple times throughout these podcasts, and the costs, and the time, and things of that nature.

I think the other thing that I would articulate is that the volunteering or the internship or the starting at the bottom or however you want to put it needs to be with kind of two things in mind. Number one, do you have a great mentor or someone that you can look up to that can guide some of that work in the right way, give you the right lessons, help you to know what we're actually doing in the nonprofit world? And the second is, are there skills and actual experiences that lend themselves to those learned experiences? If you're just stapling all the time then you become a world-class stapler I'm not sure that qualifies you to be a world-class fundraiser. So my counsel is, even if you have that degree in philanthropy from the Lily school which is fantastic, unless you're able to marry that or partner that with real world experiences with results, it limits your abilities. But at some point in your career, and I think for all of us who are a little older this happened to us as well, we begin to realize that there are subsections of philanthropy and that we sometimes have to choose one of those paths, one of which is being an asker, a gift officer, intermediate major plan. You're out asking people for money.

The second is that there's kind of a finance portion, and sometimes that's more looked at from the like CPA or accounting or things of that nature. I think there's some truth in that. The third area is what I call Operations data. How do you set up the process where we use data, databases, metrics, things of that nature to help support the organization? And the fourth is what I would call communication, marketing, annual fund writing. It's not so much asking as it is communicating. There may be a solicitation embedded in that newsletters, emails, social media, things of that nature. My experiences is that there's a certain point in a person's career where they've got to make a decision on are they going to be an asker, are they going to be in finance, are they going to be in data or infrastructure, are they going to be in communications, and that your skill set and desires really drive that conversation. If you're looking to be in upper management after getting all of this experience, most upper managers, high-level managers in philanthropy come out of the asker or asking process. They were major gift officers.

Do I necessarily think this is a perfect marriage? No I don't. There are plenty of unbelievable fundraisers who are promoted into leadership roles who stink at the leadership role and should have probably just stayed a fundraiser. But more often than not, what we see is is that the upper echelons of leadership in nonprofits come out of the asking process more and more. And more and more universities are a perfect example. Secondary education is another primary example where more of those presidents, CEOs are coming out of fundraising activities because that's what the job is requiring. So at some point you're going to have to make a decision, which one of these fit you best and how do you maximize your opportunity there.

All of this is to say for whatever it's worth is that I'm not against education. With all the education I've got it's easy for me to articulate its importance. I do think though that our profession is going to have to balance this idea of education which is new in philanthropy. Newly designed degrees, Masters, undergrad now even doctoral, if you look at IUPUI in the Lilly School, and balance that with the idea of wisdom, experience, and knowledge the longer we go the fewer people probably like, me who don't have a fundraising education, there will be. But that's never going to replace the actual need for people to be productive.

So the final comment today for whatever it's worth is, what is it I actually tell clients to look for when they're looking for new employees? You might have heard this on a previous podcast. I'm pretty consistent. It's actually not the degree, it's actually not the experience alone. I'm looking for, do they have some level of education and do they have some level of experience, what are they really looking for particularly in fundraisers, people who are actively engaged in building relationships in the community. I'm looking for number one only, two number one fire in the belly, are they a self-starter? I tell my clients you want to find people that show up and don't need to be told what to do every moment of every day. They know to pick up the phone. They know to make phone calls. They know how to figure out who they should be calling, and they know they need to get out of the office to build relationships that provide opportunities for transformational giving. There's a fire in the belly. They just get it and they go get it done. The second is that they are, what I think of when they talk about Maslow, self-actualized. And really what I'm referring to is they deal with rejection. They understand that they're going to be told no more often they're going to be told yes, and they can deal with that and they're okay with that. Fire in the belly and the ability to be self-actualized, deal with rejection, all the education in the world, all the so-called experience on a resume in the world cannot overcome someone who doesn't have a fire in their belly and doesn't deal with rejection.

So in the end, I guess my comment is, it's not education or pure work experience that's most important. It's what the person does and how they look at themselves. Can they get up and get it done and are they okay with who they, are realizing because they build relationships, people are going to say no and that's okay as well.

Don't forget check out the podcast, two or three a week 90 second reads on a myriad of subjects from the IRS to various things going on in philanthropy you can check them out at hallettphilanthropy.com. If you'd like to get a hold of me comment on this podcast, any podcast, please email me at podcast@hallettphilanthropy.com. Glad to chat. Take a subject or a recommendation for the next edition of "Around with Randall." Lastly is, I do every single time, don't forget what you do is important. You're making a difference for people or something that's important in your community that the nonprofit world, philanthropy was built for, and it's important and it's critical. If nothing else remember my all-time favorite saying: some people make things happen, some people watch things happen, then there are those who wondered what happened. And in the end you, me, and others who are fundraisers and nonprofit leaders and nonprofit employees are people who make things happen for people wondering what happened, the things that are wondering what happened and important our community, and that is a great way to spend a career. And I hope you realize the impact that you're making. I'll look forward to seeing you right back here again on "Around with Randall." Don't forget make it a great day.