news & articles

Why we aren’t living up to the hopes of the 2012 Pearce Report.

The Ross CASE Survey 2019 results are out. This shows the state of fundraising in the Higher Education sector, and as always it makes for fascinating reading for all those interested in Development.

There are some great headlines: the sector secured over £1bn in new funds. That’s an amazing climb from 10 years ago when it stood at £350m (and from ten years before that when it was almost non-existent). Cash received also grew, as did the overall number of donors.

However, I sat on the Pearce Report into the Higher Education Workforce in 2012, and we had the following hope:

"There is potential for philanthropic income of some £2 billion additional funding per annum from around 640,000 donors, with an alumni participation rate of 5%, by 2022. Income from legacies will become increasingly significant." - Pearce Report 2012

As I look at the report that has just been published, we are at £1 billion, from 244,116 donors, with an alumni participation rate of 1.3%. That latter figure has in particular has crept up only marginally since the report when it stood at 1.2%.

Well, obviously, we are not yet at 2022, but it would be an optimistic soul who felt we could get to the levels projected in 2012 in a couple of years’ time. The projection for the Pearce Report was based on the run-rate from the previous ten years, so why has the last decade not kept pace with the growth we saw originally?

1. It’s the economy stupid…

It is certainly true that the recession/depression/crisis that we have experienced since 2008/9 has been one of the longest and strangest on record. Recovery has not taken place as it has done in previous recessions, and growth has remained very flat. That has been very patchy though – some industries have seen major increases, and overall donations have continued to rise. While economic uncertainty (otherwise known as Brexit) doesn’t help anyone, does it fully explain why our fundraising totals in HE are roughly half of what was predicted?

2. Investment

There is a telling headline in the 2019 report, which shows that investment in fundraising fell by 4%. That’s not hugely surprising in a sector that is facing massive uncertainty on all fronts, and investment has been cut in all areas, not just fundraising. But that cut won’t have helped institutional ability to raise more funds. Long-term investment is correlated strongly with fundraising success. Of course it is, that’s a no-brainer isn’t it?

3. Senior posts and the brain drain

Talking of brains, the Pearce Review made much comment on the fact that senior fundraisers did not have a career track once they had become Directors of Development. The posts of Pro-Vice-Chancellor or Vice-President Development have been very slow to materialise. They are increasing, but at a snail’s pace. Australia, on the other hand, has hugely increased these posts, and have recruited some brilliant talent from the UK and the USA to sit directly on their Senior Management Boards. In an industry that is hugely personality driven (successful fundraising offices depend greatly on their leadership, and a dip is often seen when such leaders exit), that is a significant loss that really does need to be addressed. The Academic/Professional Services class divide that persists in the UK is helping no-one.

4. We started from a low base

In the ten years before 2012, fundraising in HE was only just being born. Many universities only set up fundraising offices in the early 2000s, having never asked their alumni or anyone else for anything before – or certainly not for a very long time. It therefore had a huge amount of headroom to grow, and has done so extremely successfully. Perhaps it was too much to expect that rate of growth to continue, particularly in the face of a historically huge recession.

5. The asking problem

We are often called in to assess a fundraising office where there is a challenge, and funds being raised are not as expected. The single biggest factor that causes fundraising to fail is a lack of asking, and a lack of building a pipeline of donors who can give now and in the future. This issue is also linked to a lack of available talent, and losing the best fundraisers in the system – they aren’t there to guide their team, and they aren’t there to hand their knowledge and skill on to the wider sector. If you want to raise more, you have to ask more, ask well and ask more ambitiously. We aren’t yet seeing enough of that across all fundraising offices.

There will be many other reasons as to why we aren’t accelerating as fast as we might in HE fundraising, and I don’t want to take away from the amazing achievements of the past 20 years. To be raising at or near £1billion per year consistently, from a negligible base only 20 years ago, is astonishing and universities are to be congratulated for their progress. But we want more don’t we? We want our amazing HE sector to be the best-funded in the world, by both private and public money, so that it can continue to solve the world’s problems.

If we want it to do that, then we need fundraising to continue to grow in a turbo-charged way. I would say the recipe for that is to keep investing in fundraising, keep our very best talent in the UK, and keep asking big. Great institutions deserve great and ambitious fundraising. It doesn’t come for free.

Shaun Horan, CEO & Joint Co-founder, Halpin.

Halpin is a management consultancy for the higher education sector. If you need help with your fundraising, get in touch.

How do you tackle inequality in your institution? If we are starting right at the beginning of this journey (which many of us are – even though we do not want to admit it!) then the simple answer is to own it. Everything else will follow.

But how do you own it? Who does the responsibility sit with? Where do we start?

Well, let’s start with being honest.

Take a look around you - your team, your institution’s leadership. Do you see evidence of inequality?

If we do not actively look for the inequalities in our institutions, how can we expect to overcome them? How can we remove the barriers which impede certain people from seizing the same opportunities as others?

We know inequalities exist and in many different forms – social, gender or race-based to name a few. We know that tackling inequality is the right thing to do, but let’s recap on the top three reasons why institutions do it.

• It has a positive impact on your institution’s performance (up to 35%!).
• It has a positive impact on your talent management.
• If you do not address inequality, you run a high risk of significant negative impact on your institution’s reputation.

There are some examples recently of institutions taking reputational damage because they have been slow to act, not acted enough or sometimes not acted at all. Yes… some institutions think they can still brush things under the carpet, even in the age of social media.

Let’s talk about inequality more. Even if it’s uncomfortable and it doesn’t quite come out right (Liam Neeson). Harvard have a nice, open way of doing this.

How can we talk about equality in a safe way?

Here are my top three tips:

• A great first move is to provide a space for people to get comfortable with talking about equality. I say this because we need to talk to each other first before we can tell the outside world what our position on this is. Our own narrative needs to be honest and driven by all of us.
• Invite staff and student to create and join networks to talk about EDI – provide incentives (there are many).
• A real game changer is to engage alumni, senior management and governors to participate in a significant way.

Equality is everybody’s responsibility. Communicate this well and often and by everyone.

There are some great examples of owning the narrative, creating space for dialogue and clearly stating your institution’s position.

Exeter, Glasgow and Birmingham’s campaigns have all impressed me, but my favourite has to be Manchester’s ‘We get it’ campaign. Simple, clear and inclusive!

Some brave institutions are openly collaborating and collectively improving the way they tackle inequality together.

Now is really the time to get moving with tackling inequality. The government has recently called on universities to do more to tackle ethnic disparity. The very best examples of EDI in higher education are always found within the institutions that value and prioritise not just the collection of relevant data consistently, but also the subsequent analysis and implementation of improvements.

So how do you start to tackle inequality? Own it, make space to talk about it and collect the data.

For those further on in the journey - how do you continue to tackle inequality?

We still need great data practices, but then we need to use it to underpin our institutional stories of inequality. These stories will move and mobilise our leadership and that’s when the really exciting changes can happen.

Fezzan Ahmed is a Consulting Fellow for Halpin, the home of experts in higher education, conducting in-depth and insightful race and equality reviews for institutions just like yours.

develop (n) - grow or cause to grow and become more mature, advanced, or elaborate.

As a Director of Development, the pressures on you can be intense.

Fundraising for your institution is as demanding as it is rewarding, and to succeed you must focus on your own development alongside your institution’s.

Working with a mentor with years of similar experience will pay dividends.

Susie Hills is a renowned fundraiser, an insightful mentor and a big thinker. Since leading the University of Exeter’s successful £25 million campaign, she has advised a wealth of other institutions on their fundraising. She is in demand as a mentor to talented fundraisers looking to build on their skills and drive up results for their institution.

Susie Hills – Joint CEO & Co-founder, Halpin

Susie blends empathy, experience and energy to deliver mentoring that transforms fundraising and transforms careers. With Susie as your mentor you’ll be challenged, inspired and armed with the tools and confidence you need for your path ahead.

Contact us to book an exploratory call with Susie, and download the flyer here.

What people say about Susie and her mentoring...

"Susie has a manner which is encouraging and challenging in equal measure, building from strength rather than weakness in existing strategies or experience. I continue to consider her one of my best advisors, personally and professionally, as her ability to listen and then quickly get to the heart of any matter is superb." Fiona Duffy, Director of Development, Murray Edwards College

“It’s always a pleasure to work and talk with Susie; her thoughtful approach, combined with her breadth of experience, is both reassuring and thought provoking." Karen Horn, Deputy Director of Development: Alumni Engagement, Open University

“I have loved working with Susie over the past few months. Her wealth of experience in fundraising, relationship-building and leadership has been invaluable to our sessions and I have felt hugely supported both through our conversations and brilliantly articulated follow-up. As a coach she is thoughtful, thought-provoking and challenging, and seeks to get the very best out of her clients, both through her knowledge and insight, but also through her energy, drive and humour.” Frances Milner, Executive Director of Philanthropy and Partnerships, Cancer Research UK

It occurred to me this week that there’s little that polarises views amongst university marketing professionals as much as Out of Home (OOH) advertising. It seems that it is either a critical part of a student recruitment strategy or completely frowned upon, with few ambivalent feelings in-between.

In the big scheme of things, it’s probably not that critical, I will admit. But it can take a big chunk of your budget and it tends to get noticed by colleagues and competitors alike, so it’s worth reflecting on the extent to which it should be included in your marketing plans and how best to make sure your money isn’t wasted.

Here are our top ten tips to get the most out of your OOH campaigns (just like this company did!):

1. Use it strategically against other universities. There’s nothing that riles competitors more than one of your adverts on a bus stop next to their campus, your branded taxi parked outside their Senate House or a take-over of all the available sites at the train station when your neighbour has their open day next week. It’s the epitome of parking your tanks on someone else’s lawn and it will bring you and your Senior Management Team much joy, I promise.

2. Go large or go home. Whilst an individual outdoor site isn’t necessarily expensive, for a campaign to be effective, you generally need multiple sites. Unless you are running hyper-local activity, then a mid or heavy-weight campaign is essential to increase visibility and brand recall.

3. Some say OOH is a waste of money because you can’t track it. True, it is almost impossible to get accurate data on the immediate ROI. But this doesn’t mean it isn’t effective. Outdoor is generally all about branding, not direct calls to action. It’s an opportunity to articulate your brand values and proposition, and so measuring the impact requires a different set of metrics.

4. OOH concepts need imagination. It requires investment in a creative and bold campaign that can stand out. For universities, this generally means taking a step away from higher education advertising norms and drawing inspiration from commercial and youth brands. But beware – your adverts need to be tested with your target audiences for relevance, understanding and yes, even legibility.

5. Go digital and use dynamic content. It’s possible to build in data feeds, video or factors such as traffic, the weather or time of day to personalise your messages. And the combination of OOH and mobile advertising working together is a powerful one – your adverts can be served to a 17-year old walking past one of your outdoor adverts to increase visibility and brand recall. It also means you can include a call-to-action on the mobile if you really must (see No.3).

6. Consider all formats.For example, I think cinema advertising is often overlooked. It’s ideal for targeting by demographic and location, but more importantly, you have the sole attention of the audience. We are all familiar with ‘multi-screen’ behaviour, dividing our attention between more than one device for most of our waking hours. But a cinema audience has (mostly) put their mobile phones away, so you have their undivided attention. However, remember that cinema advertising is all about branding, so if you must advertise your Open Day, don’t fall for the temptation to include a ‘book now’ call to action (please).

7. Involve your audiences. OOH can also be experiential. This could be a takeover of the local shopping centre to raise the profile of the University amongst the wider community – either to recruit staff or students, or to even share the great impacts from your research with the rest of the city. Whatever the content, it’s an opportunity to have a conversation, listen to others and show your transparency, involvement in local issues and contribution to the local community.

8. Go multi-channel. All the evidence suggests that brand metrics increase significantly from a multi-channel campaign that mixes OOH formats with digital and social. It delivers a higher chance of recall and impacts positively on awareness and emotional response. Also, one advert in one place is unlikely to result in a consumer action; but multiple views of the same campaign significantly increases the chances of a response.

9. Use it politically. I hate to include this as a top tip, but we all know that an OOH campaign gets noticed by internal influencers. So if you are putting together a business case for an increased marketing budget, then run a small but strategic outdoor campaign which results in your internal stakeholders driving past one of your roadside 48-sheet adverts on their way to work. They’ll love the visibility and confidence that it shows and want to you to do more of the same. Guaranteed.

10. Go where your audiences are. The variety of OOH opportunities gives you great targeting options. Teenagers are less likely to be on the Tube, but might be mooching around at a bus stop or outside Primark in the shopping centre. And personally, I think ‘washroom’ panels are very effective – long dwell times and gender targeting – but alas, I haven’t yet managed to persuade a University that their brand needs to be in the toilet. (I’m still working on it, watch this space.)

Rachel Killian is a Senior Consultant for Halpin Partnership – the home of experts in marketing, governance, fundraising and strategy in higher education.