The Fund Raiser

Virtual Development

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By Mark J. Drozdowski

About a month ago I bought a Wii (rhymes with "knee"), Nintendo's relatively new gaming system. They're hard to find, unless you're willing to pay twice the recommended retail price. Ostensibly, I bought it for my daughter's 6th birthday, hoping she'd share it with the rest of the family.

For those unfamiliar with the Wii, let me elaborate briefly. Wii games require users to act out movements, not just push buttons on a joystick. So if you're boxing, you throw punches. If you're bowling, you fling the ball, complete with wrist spin, if that's your thing. Driving games come with a steering wheel, which amuses my 4-year-old son to no end.

Another fun feature of the Wii is your avatar. Every player gets to create a virtual persona, a "Mii." Your Mii will act out your movements on the screen, while the other family members' Miis appear in various crowd scenes. Mine looks remarkably accurate, but with a bit more hair.

My virtual Mii now complements the real me.

To be honest, though, I've led a virtual existence for some time. As a freelance writer, I've done work for editors, interviewed subjects, and interacted with photographers and designers -- most of whom have never met me. To them, I exist as a series of e-mail messages, a phone voice, drafts, and the final written products. I've written for dozens of colleges that I have never visited; as far as anyone can tell, the writing hasn't suffered.

Next fall, I expect to begin teaching part time for a college that is starting an online-only graduate program in higher education and philanthropy. Students will know me as lines of text ... and vice versa.

If I were so inclined, I could fashion a full-time career as a freelance writer, editor, and professor, and rarely leave home.

But could I be a virtual fund raiser? Do I really need an office on the campus? Could I do my job from afar?

I wouldn't be the first to try. A friend of mine worked as a major-gifts officer for a prominent West Coast university. He created a home office in Connecticut and canvassed the East Coast. He would visit the California campus every few months for meetings and such. Otherwise, he could commute to his office in his slippers.

Plenty of sophisticated development operations feature outposts dotted across the country and, in some cases, the world. I imagine their operations vary, but my take is that most function as regular offices -- just not ones located on the campus. People come in every day to those outposts, at least when they're not on the road, and punch a clock.

Which brings me to my main point. If development managers want fund raisers out of the office as much as possible, why require them to check in every day? Why not let a major-gifts officer work from home even if he or she lives five miles away?

Everything I do here in the office -- as a fund raiser, not as a manager -- can be accomplished from home. I make calls. I send e-mail messages. I search the database. I write letters and proposals. I get in my car and travel. If I have to attend meetings, I can drive to the campus and do so, parking limitations notwithstanding.

My management responsibilities require me to interact more frequently with people on the campus, to put out fires, to slog through budgets and piles of paperwork. That part of the job keeps me campus-bound. Were I an untethered major-gifts officer, however, the duties for which I actually needed to work on the campus would be minimal.

Imagine a job candidate weighing two offers. One university will furnish a nice office, a computer, a phone, and other supplies necessary for the job. But you have to come in every day unless you are on the road. The other university will furnish the same items, but will allow you to fashion a home office and will require your physical presence on the campus only when necessary. Money being the same, which option is more attractive?

Cynics might suggest that employees unchecked will slack off, that performance will suffer. Well, so will results. Development is a results-oriented operation. Either you're bringing in money or you're not.

Distractions abound, critics will claim: kids, television, shopping, napping, nagging. What about distractions in the office? Gossip, Web surfing, coffee breaks, impromptu meetings, extended lunch breaks, afternoon gym sessions. Employees who are good at managing their time will avoid distractions regardless of the venue. And home offices can be even more secluded than campus ones.

A virtual life offers freedom. If I want to wake up at 9 a.m., confer with colleagues for a couple of hours by phone or e-mail, go shopping or visit the doctor, write a proposal in the afternoon and see a donor for dinner, what's the problem? Eventually, the numbers I generate will dictate success or failure.

The same argument, minus the numbers, can be made for "creatives" in our field. Writers, editors, designers, and photographers don't need four walls hemming them in. If they're getting their jobs done, why worry about the process? I can write a great proposal in a coffee shop.

Flip the coin and consider the institution's perspective. Development offices everywhere are adding staff members, or planning to. Fund raisers -- decent ones, anyway -- are a good investment, returning at least three to five times their salaries to their institutions every year.

On the other hand, there's a tiny problem of where to put all of these folks. A few larger development offices have set up shop off their campuses -- in some cases, out of town. Instead, what if those 10 new major-gift officers you're hiring for the budding campaign worked from home? You might even save on energy costs and make the green people happy.

The notion of place-based employment will soon become antiquated, if it hasn't already. Yes, some professionals must be "at work" to perform. You can't operate on a patient from home. But you can teach, you can write, and you can raise money from home -- assuming you do, of course, leave the house from time to time.

My guess is those institutions offering a work-from-home option to employees will fare better in hiring and retention. In this heated recruiting environment for fund-raising talent, giving candidates the choice may provide a considerable advantage, even more so than bigger salaries.

Fund raisers don't work 9 to 5, so why make them conform to an office culture based on that schedule? Perhaps that's why some leave for consulting gigs, which often let them live anywhere and travel when necessary. Given similar freedom from a university, might they stay?

I imagine insecurities and a perceived loss of control will prevent this notion from gaining traction. Or maybe managers simply don't trust employees enough to free them from office shackles. But the practice is out there in other fields, and it's certainly a growing trend. Don't be surprised when it begins to trickle into our lives as well.