On Purpose

 Kathryn Munro
Executive Director of Recognition and Stewardship
Dartmouth College

I don’t know if it’s the pandemic or that mid-life unraveling I can expect now that I’m in my forties, but lately I’ve been fixated on the concept of purpose.

It keeps coming up again and again, like a song you hear for the first time in years and suddenly that song is everywhere. Coincidence? Synchronicity? A sign from the universe? Whatever you want to call it, purpose is everywhere for me, and from what I’ve been hearing from colleagues and friends, it’s everywhere for a lot of people right now.

Why do we do what we do? Why do we work where we work? How can we use our unique strengths, our passions, our imaginations to make this aching world a better place?

One of my colleagues—a relative newcomer into the field of Advancement—is participating in an internship program where she spends a week at a time shadowing different teams in our organization. During her week with my department, I asked each of my team members to share what it is they love about donor relations work and why they do what they do. While this exercise was originally meant to be a fun way to educate the intern, it ended up being much more powerful than that.

The answers from my team members blew me away. I heard beautiful sentiments about the importance of philanthropy for driving social change, the ability to tell stories, to immerse oneself in gratitude on a daily basis, the opportunity to innovate and create, to nerd out on data analysis, to “surprise and delight.” The conversation not only helped me better understand what drives each of my colleagues, but I know it was motivating for each of them to be able to articulate their personal why.

For me, my why is about legacy: affirming the personal legacy of the philanthropists who choose to support my organization, and thereby building my own legacy through this fulfilling work.

In Lynne Twist’s fascinating book The Soul of Money, she discusses the concept of legacy-building at length. She writes, “What you share you strengthen and that which you share lasts forever as your true legacy.”

As donor relations professionals, we have an opportunity to help donors define their personal legacy. While there are many reasons people give, and countless worthy causes to donate to, it’s safe to say that a significant driver for donating to an institution is that the donor’s ideal core values align with the organization’s mission, the leadership’s priorities, and hopefully both.

Probably like yours, my institution has a strong mission statement and a set of strategic pillars that define our unique position in the higher education landscape. And because we are in a campaign, we also have a crystal-clear set of campaign priorities based on academic and institutional needs, and which drive our fundraising and donor relations activities.

That mission, those pillars, and priorities: they have become the through-line in every part of our engagement with donors. They are woven into every acknowledgement, every report, every event, every video, every pledge reminder.

It is our privilege—and quite frankly our purpose—to be able to connect these values back to those who have invested. If we can do that successfully, we not only keep these investors engaged and proud to be associated with our organization, we reinforce to them that we share the same values.

For me, I find great fulfilment in this work because, at its core, it is about helping people define their legacy as they strengthen the mission of the institution that my personal values align with.

And through it all, I find my purpose and define my legacy by helping others define theirs.

I’m curious, what is your purpose?