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September 13, 2004
Q & A with Johnnie Ray
Johnnie Ray, senior vice president for the newly renamed Office of Development and University Relations, arrived from Texas this summer with plans for Emory just as big as the Lone Star State. Emory Report Editor Michael Terrazas talked with Ray about the challenges facing the University during this exciting time.
Emory Report: It hasn’t exactly been a secret that Emory is about to launch a major fund-raising campaign. What will need to happen between now and the launch of the campaign?
Johnnie Ray: If I tried to answer this question in a granular and/or technical way, it would fill up the whole publication, I’m afraid. So it’s best I respond from a big-picture perspective. We will need to form and present a well-formed institutional vision for the future. The importance of this cannot be overstated.
No amount of fundraising machinery, organization or technique can be effective without a compelling, outwardly focused expression of how we can make a difference in society. We must be able to clearly present solid facts about our contribution to society. We need to present a concrete plan for increasing our margin of excellence and to demonstrate why that margin of excellence is important to the economy, culture, health and general quality of life in our region, state and nation. We must be able to answer the questions of what is our value proposition—our social contract, if you will—and how are we going to be accountable for serving the broader good.
A good bit of this will come out of the strategic planning process, and we must link the campaign to the implementation of the strategic plan. However, as we use the strategic plan as the backdrop for the campaign, we must take the document one step further by describing how achieving it will make a difference in society—how it will improve people’s lives.
You’ve said focusing on a dollar amount for the campaign is not important. What is important? What should Emory be talking about?
JR: Actually, the dollar amount is important, it is just not the most important thing. In my view, the “how much” is not as important as the “for what.” If we are not able to achieve the things that are really important to our quality in a cross-cutting sense, then we can raise a tremendous amount of money—but not see genuine, enduring improvement in our ability to reach new levels of achievement.
As I have said before, the campaign ought to be a time for us to focus on purpose, quality and achievement. If we are able to understand our proper role in society and fulfill it to the best of our ability, and if we are able to identify even greater opportunities to serve in the future, the resources will follow.
Thus, how we position the campaign from a marketing perspective is critical, and we must be quite sophisticated in how we do it. Warm feelings carry us only so far with alumni and friends, and nowhere with corporations and foundations. Funding sources want to have impact, and we want them to see Emory as a place to make their philanthropic bets on the incredible talents of our faculty, researchers and health care professionals.
In other words, we need to demonstrate how philanthropy can help focus the intellectual resources of our faculty and experts on matters of great societal concern. We cannot characterize the campaign as being about “need,” but instead about how a financially strong Emory can impact our world. A philanthropic commitment to Emory should be seen as an investment with a clear societal return.
Internally, we need to be very conscious of the fact that philanthropy is about enhancements and must work in synergy with, not replace, other funding streams.
Having only been at Emory for a few months, you may not be ready to say what its “core values” are, but how does the University go about discovering them?
JR: It is not really my place to say what Emory’s core values are except as one voice among the many. But I can say that it is critical that we do discover them and for all of us in the family to be able to express them readily. And you certainly chose the right word when you mention “discovering” the values. The values exist and have been present for a long time—but articulating those values in ways the outside world can appreciate and see value is critical.
The process of arriving at a vision statement led by President [Jim] Wagner was a huge step in that direction of discovery. Already you are hearing the words “destination,” “courageous,” “inquiry driven,” “transformation,” etc., being spoken by people all over the campus and by our close friends.
Another place of discovery is, again, the strategic planning process. What is valued here will show up in the priorities and strategies of that process. We undoubtedly will see common thematic elements coming from this process. If we can express those in soaring, striving and ambitious language, we will touch our constituents in the right way as to make them want to be a part.
You’ve got firsthand experience running a campaign of this magnitude. From what you can tell, are people here ready for this kind of undertaking? Why? Or, if they’re not ready, what will they have to do September to get ready?
JR: People are ready in the sense that they know there is a lot of work to do to get ready, if that makes sense. And everyone seems most willing to step up and deliver on his or her part of the equation. Also, it is clear that people understand a campaign is a collective enterprise, not just something to be carried out on the side by the fundraisers.
In a business sense, we already have started and have made major progress toward getting ready. I have announced a reorganization of the Development and University Relations office (formerly Institutional Advancement) that will allow us to both practically and strategically prepare for and then lead the related tasks of the comprehensive campaign and of aligning the external perception of Emory with its reality.
President Wagner has issued a new charge for the DUR organization that provides a compelling context for our work and lays out high expectations for achievement. This charge [shown at right] makes clear the imperative that DUR operate with a much higher degree of common strategic intent and that it be managed for measurable outcomes.
We are in the process of building a capacity for stronger service from the center so that the local units can concentrate on the cultivation and solicitation of donors. We are very close to establishing common standards for development activities across the University so that the art of major-gift fundraising is supported by the discipline and accountability to reach critical mass. I am really just scratching the surface of things either under way or about to be that will get us ready for the campaign, but we will be ready.
You hit the ground running when you got here, launching processes to rename the Institutional Advancement division [see story, page 1] and do the internal restructuring you just mentioned. Can you explain the thinking behind these bold moves?
JR: I wouldn’t consider these things to be particularly bold, just necessary. The term “Inst-itutional Advancement” just doesn’t mean anything to our outside audiences. They don’t understand it. So I thought we needed something that was more common, direct and readily understood. Business as usual was not what the president and the Board [of Trustees] were looking for at this time.
As far as the restructuring and other initiatives, I was hired to shake things up quickly and in a positive way. It would not have made any strategic sense for me to move cautiously or slowly. Rather I needed to create a keen sense of urgency about the need to build a strong communications and public affairs platform for Emory that will better position it in the academic marketplace and to run a major campaign.
From my limited but highly committed perspective, Emory has been “poised” to move forward for too long. Now ought to be a time when we move from poised status to an aggressive mobilization, with DUR providing a major contribution to achieving our desired spot in the public consciousness.
The DUR organization should have no less a goal than to become the leading organization of its kind for innovation and a model for the rest of higher education. As I have said to our professionals on numerous occasions, if the faculty, researchers and practitioners at this University are expected to push the frontiers of their disciplines, then we should be expected to push the frontiers in ours.
Compare your perceptions of Emory at the start of your interview process with what you know about the place and its people after having been here two-and-a-half months. How does the latter explain and/or contradict the former?
JR: Having been in higher education for 28 years, my perception of Emory was already very high, long before I had any inkling of coming here. People in higher education know Emory. There is a very clear brand image of Emory in our industry. What concerns me, however, and what we need to work on with great vigor, is that the public generally does not have as clear a picture of Emory, where it fits in the marketplace, and the enormous quality that has been achieved here.
The process of bringing the public perception of Emory into full alignment with our true place and quality is a task that should go forward with a vector equal to the campaign. In fact, the two tasks are very closely related, and the kind of strategy and messaging to achieve both are almost one and the same.
“In this exciting period as Emory University begins to reach toward the realization of its full potential, our Office of Development and University Relations similarly must move beyond current and best practices to set new standards for performance in the areas of development, alumni relations, public relations and integrated marketing communications. We must expect of ourselves measurable success in enhanced visibility, reputation and ultimately in philanthropic participation levels, especially funds raised through a comprehensive campaign.
To reach the goals of the campaign in order that Emory can advance toward its vision, the Development and University Relations team must integrate in powerful ways the technical skill sets of development, marketing, communications and alumni relations to: 1) create, promote and protect Emory’s reputation among key stakeholders and audiences in the crucial marketplaces of public opinion, business and government;
2) assist Emory leadership to understand, anticipate and manage its environment, especially in terms of external media audiences; 3) create and maintain alumni and donor programs and activities that will seek out and support the creation of new volunteer leadership for Emory; 4) create effective and strategic solicitation programs appropriate to all prospective donors; 5) create and maintain powerful stewardship programs that will draw donors and keep them in the fold and wanting to do more.
Presidential charge to Office of Development and University Relations
“In this exciting period as Emory University begins to reach toward the realization of its full potential, our Office of Development and University Relations similarly must move beyond current and best practices to set new standards for performance in the areas of development, alumni relations, public relations and integrated marketing communications. We must expect of ourselves measurable success in enhanced visibility, reputation and ultimately in philanthropic participation levels, especially funds raised through a comprehensive campaign.
To reach the goals of the campaign in order that Emory can advance toward its vision, the Development and University Relations team must integrate in powerful ways the technical skill sets of development, marketing, communications and alumni relations to: 1) create, promote and protect Emory’s reputation among key stakeholders and audiences in the crucial marketplaces of public opinion, business and government; 2) assist Emory leadership to understand, anticipate and manage its environment, especially in terms of external media audiences; 3) create and maintain alumni and donor programs and activities that will seek out and support the creation of new volunteer leadership for Emory; 4) create effective and strategic solicitation programs appropriate to all prospective donors; 5) create and maintain powerful stewardship programs that will draw donors and keep them in the fold and wanting to do more.
In a manner almost unique among all of the components of a complex research university, the Office of Development and University Relations has the freedom to adopt a mindset akin to a for-profit venture, and indeed it must do so. The evidence of your near-term success is easily measured in business terms month by month and quarter by quarter. The impact of your success, however, will be a legacy of excellence in teaching, research, scholarship, health care and social action that will serve society forever. Thank you for taking up this critical challenge.”
—President Jim Wagner
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