Larry D. Lauer

More than five years ago several key members of the board of trustees and professional staff of the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) could see a “sea change” coming in higher education, one that would thrust advancement professionals into a new level of leadership with a completely new set of performance expectations.

This “sea change” is both good and challenging news for the profession. The good news is that new and better rewarded opportunities will appear in the U.S. and abroad for the best among us.  The challenging news is that extremely high performance will be expected which will also require a new level of sophistication and understanding of the industry’s market issues, realities and trends.

Past CASE annual conferences concentrated mostly on the most current fundraising, alumni relations, marketing and communication tactics and cases. However, in order to meet the coming industry challenges an annual Summit was designed primarily to prepare advancement leaders to deal with the issues and competitive realities ahead.

This year’s Summit will kick off in Washington on Sunday. Here are eight “beyond tactics” concerns that are currently on my mind: 

1. How will today’s state legislative cutbacks change our core business, and what are the implications for advancement?  And how do for-profits factor into this equation?

2. How will essential increases in tuition be managed when the public thinks we already cost too much? What are the consequences of the recent questioning of the basic value of a college degree?  And what are the implications here for advancement?

3. How will internationalization effect competition for students, money and reputation at home? Will even the smallest U.S. institution be affected?

4. Are back-to-back comprehensive campaigns sustainable? How do we maintain donor loyalty when every nonprofit in the U.S. and abroad is out looking for philanthropic resources?

5. What is the future of on-line education?  Can it actually save money? How will it affect institutions that already have huge investments in maintaining a residential-based college experience?

6. Where will jobs in the future be found?  What will be the appropriate preparation for getting one of them? Is this sufficient preparation for a lifetime?  And does advancement have a role to play here?

7. What should liberal arts based institutions do now?  What happens to the “education for both a career and for a happy life”  philosophy?  How does advancement help address these situations?

8. Are boards of governance changing in make-up and expectations?  If so how?  Is there a trend toward more financial  risk taking?  Is there mounting pressure for a more corporate style management?  Is there a different traditional academic culture that should be maintained?  How should advancement respond?

In this new world of higher education there is little doubt that advancement will face increasingly high expectations, and will be required to play a key role in overall strategic planning and institutional problem-solving. Those professionals who stay focused only on tactics, even when those tactics are the cutting edge new media ones, will no longer qualify for the top leadership positions, or so I think.  Simply put, the coming “sea change” in higher education is bringing new very complicated, and in many cases institutional survival related, demands.

I suggest that only those advancement professionals who have moved beyond the tactics, and have developed the intellectual capacity to manage critical issues in a rapidly changing landscape, will qualify for taking on these new leadership opportunities. And the annual CASE Summit for Advancement Leaders is the perfect place to begin your immersion in these critical issues and to learn all about these exciting leadership challenges.