Did anyone else at the fantastic REIGNITE International Conference in Adelaide notice how frequently the presenters were asked about the application of their ideas for fundraising to a girls\u2019 school environment?<\/p>\n
It seems that many of us struggle to see how we can emulate the successful campaigns being realised by our colleagues in boys\u2019 schools. And that\u2019s a reasonable doubt to have. After all, it remains rare to hear of mega gifts to girls\u2019 schools, scholarships being endowed, or new sports centres being completed with tens of millions of donations from alumnae and parents.<\/p>\n
Whilst we don\u2019t yet have the data here in Australia, the findings of large-scale benchmarking studies in the UK by IDPE<\/a> have been completely unambiguous: the boys schools are raising much more than girls schools (with co-ed schools sitting somewhere in between). However, the benchmarking also shows us there is more to the story than this\u2026<\/p>\n As a consultant in the UK, I helped run benchmarking for the colleges of the University of Oxford. On more than one occasion the head of a prestigious and ancient college would remark in surprise at how they were being outdone by other colleges that were younger and less well known. Almost inevitably, the data showed that these high-flying colleges were the ones who had got out and met with their alumni, told their stories well, cultivated strong relationships and \u2013 crucially \u2013 asked more often and for bigger gifts. The lesson from this might sound obvious, but institutions that commit the time and resource to fundraising are going to raise more money.<\/p>\n And when you examine the UK school data you find that the boys\u2019 schools have generally been fundraising a lot longer, and have much bigger teams. For example, the authors of the 2016 IDPE School Alumni Survey* observed that \u201cthe average philanthropic income per school increases the longer a Development Office has been operational<\/strong>\u201d, and found that \u201cthe vast majority of girls\u2019 schools represented in this report are at the very early stages of their development journey (on average their Development Offices have been established between 4 – 6 years), whilst Development Offices in boys\u2019 schools have been established on average for 11 – 20 years.<\/strong>\u201d They also found that boys\u2019 day schools were investing on average nearly three times as much in fundraising as the girls\u2019 day schools.<\/p>\n Here in Australia and New Zealand, the annual benchmarking of university fundraising conducted by CASE<\/a> also shows an incredibly strong relationship between investment in fundraising and the level of philanthropic support received. Given the close fit with the UK school data, it seems reasonable to conclude that the same is likely to apply across the educational sector here, not just for universities.<\/p>\n This is a crucial lesson for our schools: if we allow our self-belief to be eroded by historic underperformance by girls\u2019 schools, we risk perpetuating this gender imbalance, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy that boys\u2019 schools will always outdo girls\u2019 schools when it comes to philanthropy. Instead, shouldn\u2019t we embrace the example of our colleagues at the boys\u2019 schools where they have invested consistently and heavily and are now reaping the rewards?<\/p>\n We also need to be direct in our communication with parents and alumnae \u2013 unapologetically explaining that our schools have a responsibility to be out there fundraising, to ensure that current and future generations of girls can enjoy the same opportunities as their brothers. Indeed, we need them to step up and be even more generous, because there\u2019s already a big gap in the dollars that have been committed to the education of boys compared to that of girls, and this urgently needs closing.<\/p>\n For me, amongst the many valuable take homes from this year\u2019s International Conference was the title of the Lauriston Foundation\u2019s campaign, which beautifully encapsulates the message that needs telling louder and wider:<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s Her Turn!<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n Paul Dennett<\/strong> |<\/a> Director of Development at Queenwood School<\/a>, NSW\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Did anyone else at the fantastic REIGNITE International Conference in Adelaide notice how frequently the presenters were asked about the application of their ideas for fundraising to a girls\u2019 school environment? It seems that many of us struggle to see how we can emulate the successful campaigns being realised by our colleagues in boys\u2019 schools. 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