Having worked in the community college system for more than a decade, I am an ardent advocate for the transformative work that takes place across our institutions. We make college accessible to everyone and degree attainment successful for many learners for whom a college education would have been unattainable a century ago. While seemingly young compared to many of our four-year counterparts, community colleges have earned notable bragging rights over the last 50 years. According to the American Association of Community Colleges, the 1,044 institutions across the country provide affordable education to nearly half of all undergraduates enrolled in the higher education system and award more than 1.5 million credentials annually.
What is even more impressive are the students themselves. Ranging from 16 to 80-plus years old, a third are first-generation college students, many are single parents, and most attend part time while balancing work, family, and other life commitments. Students of color represent more than half of national community college enrollment and 20 percent report a disability. Our classrooms are filled with incredibly motivated students. We enroll returning adults with college credentials who are upskilling into a new career, and students who are creating new beginnings after taking a less productive path.
Reading scholarship applications will bring tears to your eyes as you come to understand each student’s life journey to the institution’s doorstep. Their stories vary but their future goals and aspirations are consistent. They strive to create better lives for themselves and their families while seeking economic mobility and igniting a commitment to a lifetime of learning. Community college students are courageous, resilient, dedicated, and persistent. For those who continue their education toward a bachelor’s degree, our university partners find them well prepared.
The foundations that support community colleges are an equally diverse group of organizations with dedicated volunteers who are passionate about clearing financial obstacles for students while also serving as strong partners in supporting their institution’s growth and innovation. But being good partners, like any relationship, requires both willingness and work.
Oakton Community College President Joianne Smith and board leaders characterized the relationship that has existed between the college and its educational foundation as cordial but not connected. The foundation had been doing respectable work, raising about half a million dollars a year, managing a $15-million investment portfolio, and distributing nearly a million dollars to the institution annually for scholarships, internal grants, and an occasional capital purchase. Three staff members worked diligently to support the board, receive gifts, and maintain financial records. But there was insufficient capacity to proactively fundraise beyond basic annual fund activities. While college and board leaders had expressed interest in conducting a major gifts campaign, two feasibility studies conducted over the past decade concluded the foundation was not prepared for such an undertaking. Obstacles to success included the lack of a donor pipeline and operational infrastructure.
Located in a seemingly fertile fundraising area just north of Chicago, we recognized tremendous opportunity existed for the foundation to become a more connected and consequential partner to the college.
Of course, to catalyze transformative growth and innovation, the right leadership is needed at the right time. People make progress. Laying the foundation upon which to build meaningful connection starts with willing partners and a common understanding of how you seek to be in a relationship with one another. With the support of the college president, foundation president, and trustee liaison, we set out to create the first memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the institution and the foundation, utilizing resources and examples from AGB and peer institutions. With facilitation by consultants who brought expertise from the college and university foundation sector and the community college context, we held the first joint meeting between our governing and foundation boards in September 2020. Then a smaller working team composed of two trustees, two foundation board leaders, the college president, and the foundation executive director led the charge. The team met virtually in four working sessions to discuss priorities, review drafts, and craft language that captured the spirit of the relationship we aspired to create. We defined roles and responsibilities of the respective and collective parties, and outlined steps to resolve conflicts to avoid total fracture and separation if any rift were to arise. Four months later, the team presented a strong draft to both boards for independent review before finalizing the document that would come before both bodies for approval.
The resulting MOU includes many elements familiar to foundations that have had these instruments in place for decades. It includes clarity that the foundation is independent of the college, it is the exclusive fundraising representative of the college, and that it will operate with a high degree of professionalism as the trusted agent of donor relationships and fiduciary of donor resources. It also affirms the role of the governing board as the leader of mission and strategy for the institution and defines connecting points between the bodies related to regular communication and meaningful engagement. Creating an agreement from scratch was both daunting and invigorating. We are tremendously grateful for the expertise and guidance of David Bass, now serving as the executive director of philanthropic governance at AGB, and Sue Kubik, managing principal with eAdvancement and award-winning community college advancement leader.
In introducing the MOU for foundation approval in March 2021, board president Carl Costanza remarked, “Together we share the common goal of improving the lives of students, their families, and the community through outstanding education opportunities with a focus on equity, diversity, inclusion, and innovation. This MOU codifies an even stronger commitment to those goals and the Foundation greatly appreciates the spirit of collaboration, cooperation, and most importantly, student success that energized our work throughout its creation. This MOU takes our partnership of nearly 45 years to a new level of engagement.” It passed unanimously and laid the groundwork for the next wave of collaboration between the boards.
The next thing the working team tackled was a reconciliation of shared policies. Both boards had preexisting gift acceptance policies. The trustees had a naming policy for honorary purposes, but not philanthropic. And neither board had a policy for renaming should this become necessary in the future. We went back to the drawing board, building policies that would be adopted jointly. The new gift acceptance policy provided clarity and latitude for acceptance of most contributions by the chief development officer, but also created a Gift Acceptance Committee composed of representatives from both boards when a gift was determined to have moderate or high risk associated with its acquisition. The naming and renaming policies more closely defined the circumstances and roles the boards held when recognizing a donor for their generosity through naming and in response to events that would make renaming or removing a name prudent.
We also agreed to continue to hold joint meetings between the boards at least annually. The second historic meeting took place this past September and focused on the college and foundation’s scholarship program, building collective knowledge of the resources we individually and jointly make available for award, the process by which this occurs, transparency around who benefits, and how recipients perform academically and from a credential completion standpoint compared to our full population of students. The foundation board will continue to mine through this information as they evaluate if there are gaps in our portfolio in alignment with the college’s commitment to equity and future vision.
The MOU also directs us to hold quarterly leadership meetings to share updates and current priorities. Initially attended by the board chairs, college president and chief development officer, we quickly expanded the group to include the trustee liaison and foundation vice president to ensure all points of connection and continuity are part of these conversations.
The foundation board has covered a lot of ground in recent years, recrafting bylaws, updating and adding policy, adopting board development best practices, adding staff support, and creating its own strategic plan to light the way forward in concert with the college. The board was recently invited to provide input and feedback during the college’s strategic planning process, serving as an initial focus group of external constituents. We have also identified more than 100 donors and alumni to engage in subsequent discussions, leveraging foundation board members’ networks to include individuals not previously connected to the institution as we lay the groundwork for our first major gifts campaign.
While our story is still unfolding, it is not dissimilar from that of many of our community college colleagues. We are committed to creating better communities one student at a time, enabling success by clearing financial barriers and providing resources for growth and expansion of our institution’s bold visions. Oakton’s boards are fortunate to have now have these critical tools in place as we write the next chapter—moving from cordial to connected as we work to become increasingly consequential partners.
Katherine S. Sawyer is the associate vice president of marketing and communication and chief advancement officer of Oakton Community College.
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