My first jobs in this field were in siloed offices. Development raised the money. Communications told the story. Admission (or membership, depending on the organization) brought people in. Three offices, three leaders, three calendars, and too often three versions of the truth.
Since then I’ve worked in and run integrated Advancement offices, where development, communications, and admission or membership all sit on one team under one leader. I’ve also converted siloed offices into integrated ones, both from the director’s chair and as a consultant. I’ve seen both models up close, and I believe in the second one. Here’s why.
What silos look like from the inside
Silos generate a lot of heat and comparatively little light. I’ve watched turf wars and infighting take up energy that should have gone to donors and families. I’ve seen one office insist on designs and language that the communications office was actively working against. I’ve seen campaigns surprise each other, landing in the same inbox the same week, or even pulling in opposite directions. Families and donors heard conflicting messages from the same organization. And when a crisis hit, nobody was clear on who spoke, what we said, or who decided.
None of that requires bad people. It only requires a structure that sets good people against each other.
The same people, one plan
The family touring your school this fall is next year’s parent body. That parent is an annual fund donor, a volunteer, and a reader of everything you send. Their child becomes the alum you’ll ask in twenty years.
In a membership organization, the member who renews is also the donor, the event guest, and the volunteer.
When three offices each own a slice of one person, the person gets three relationships that don’t know about each other. One Advancement plan treats them as one person, because they are.
Admission starts the relationship
The first conversation a family has with your school, or a new member has with your organization, is the first conversation of the giving relationship. How people are welcomed, what they’re promised, and whether you follow through all shape whether they’ll ever give.
That doesn’t mean admission officers should be asking for gifts. It means the people who open the relationship and the people who grow it should be working from the same plan.
One database, one calendar, one story
One database. Everyone who works with a person should see the whole relationship: the inquiry, the enrollment, the gifts, the event they skipped, the complaint they made last spring.
One calendar. Every appeal, event, mailing, and enrollment deadline on one page, so campaigns stop colliding and start building on each other.
One story. The same words in the viewbook, the case for support, the website, and the renewal letter. When the story is told the same way everywhere, people believe it.
One leader at the table
When development, communications, and admission or membership report separately, senior leadership hears three partial views of the same people. One Advancement leader on the senior team can speak for the whole relationship, set priorities across all three, and settle disagreements before they reach your families. In a crisis, that leader already knows who speaks and what we say.
The work is already one piece
Fundraisers are storytellers. A gift officer’s best tool is a story the communications team helped shape. The communications team’s best stories often come from families and donors the other offices know well. Admission and membership sell the same mission your case for support describes. The work is already deeply interdependent. The structure should admit it.
What changes when it’s one team
In the offices I’ve run and the ones I’ve helped convert, Advancement brought everyone onto the same team. Their turf became our turf, and our success was mutual. That’s the shift I’m after for every organization I work with: from “whose is this?” to “what does this person need from us?”
Where to start, even before you reorganize
You don’t need a new org chart to begin.
- Put every office’s calendar on one page for the next six months. Circle the weeks where two offices are asking the same people for something.
- Follow one family or member through last year. List every message they got from you, from every office. Read it as they would.
- Write down who speaks, and who decides, in a crisis. If the answer depends on which office the crisis touches, that’s your first conversation.
- Meet monthly as one group. The development, communications, and admission or membership leads, one hour, one shared calendar on the table.
Free toolkit. Score your development office in five areas and find out what to fix first. The free toolkit also includes a weekly rhythm worksheet for small shops, a grant go or no-go scorecard, and a one-page gift coding data dictionary. Get the Development Office Self-Audit →
If you’re thinking about bringing development, communications, and admission or membership together, that’s the kind of cross-department work our custom strategic partnerships are built for.
– Mary-Ellen
Featured photo: Photo by Dylan Gillis on Unsplash.
