When donors run into financial trouble, colleges typically go out of their way to help them feel comfortable about fulfilling their gifts.
Though pledge agreements are legally binding documents, colleges rarely, if ever, take donors to court. It’s bad publicity, and colleges won’t receive the money any faster if their supporters don’t have it.
“Most institutions do everything they can to accommodate donors,” says Ronald D. Vanden Dorpel, who recently retired as Brown University’s senior vice president for advancement and now works as a fund-raising consultant. “There’s no gain whatsoever for anybody to act like a collection agency and put the heat on people.”
Fund-raising consultants say they’re seeing colleges offer creative solutions to donor uncertainty—offering to change payment schedules and amounts, or letting donors skip a year or two of payments and add them to the end of the pledge period.
The University of South Carolina came up with several options for major donors who were either having problems meeting a pledge or feeling uncertain about making a future one, says Michelle Dodenhoff, vice president for development and alumni relations.
Donors could extend pledges by a year or two, or start paying their pledges a year or two after making them, or start with smaller payments and step up the amount due each year, or include a financial-hardship clause in their agreement.
Just a handful of donors chose to extend their pledges or start them later, but offering the options had a positive effect, Ms. Dodenhoff says: “I think that made our donors feel a lot more comfortable.”
At the University of Central Florida, eight major donors asked to delay pledges for a new medical-school building, says Robert J. Holmes Jr., vice president for development and alumni relations. One offered his own solution: He would cover any additional costs Central Florida incurred because of his delay.
“If that isn’t a great philanthropist, I don’t know what is,” Mr. Holmes says.
Sometimes, however, such flexibility doesn’t work, and colleges decide to let go without a fight. Otterbein College, which saw a $1.5-million gift for an equine-science center fall through last year, decided not to pursue the money through legal means, says Heidi L. Tracy, vice president for institutional advancement. It was clear that the donor, a parent of a student, felt badly and was not acting out of malice, she says.
The college hasn’t written off that donor completely. Eventually, Otterbein believes, that person will make another gift.
