Q & A with Julia Sutherland

Julia Sutherland, no stranger to APRA members, spoke with The Scoop's co-editor Shelly Steenhorst-Baker about her move into fundraising from research.
 
Julia is currently the Director of Development at University of Calgary's Faculty of Medicine. She moved into that role in August 2010 from her prior position at University of Calgary as Director, Development Prospect Research and Pipeline. Julia has a strong prospect research background. She was a Research Officer at University of Calgary from 2004 until 2007, when she moved into research management in the Director, Development Prospect Research and Pipeline position. She was a strong volunteer and supporter of APRA Canada, serving as the Director, External Relations from 2008-2010 and as the 2010 APRA Canada Conference co-Chair.
 
Can you tell me a bit about the structure and team for your current position?
So we have a relatively large team in the Faculty of Medicine.  Our Executive Director is responsible for overall fundraising leadership of the Faculty and also serves on the University's fund development executive leadership team.  We also have a Senior Director in the Faculty who reports to the Executive Director and has the additional responsibility for mentorship and performance management of myself and others.  In addition to me, as the Director of Development, we also have an Associate Director.  Our focus is more strictly on fundraising for our assigned areas or projects.
 
Between the four of us, we are responsible to support the fundraising efforts of 7 Health Institutes, 19 departments and collectively raise $32 million this year.  As a Director, I am responsible for fundraising for the Libin Cardiovascular Institute of Alberta, and another 10 or so departmental projects, including our Global Health initiatives.  I have autonomy to manage the fundraising priorities in my area and am responsible for developing a fundraising plan for each project, identifying and engaging prospects and providing guidance and support to the project leaders.
 
Julia, you were in research from 2004 through 2010. How long were you in research before you started thinking about making the transition to major gifts?
I always had a curiosity around the major gifts side of fundraising, but it wasn't until my last year that I seriously considered making the move. When the opportunity with the Faculty of Medicine came up, I knew it was the right opportunity with the right group of people, and decided to make the move.
 
When I was the Director of Research, I had a lot of outreach and consultation with the Directors of Development as the Research team worked to understand and meet their needs. This gave me lots of opportunity to interact and develop relationships with the fundraisers. It also allowed me to peek behind the veil and understand what the job actually was. Before that, there was a lot of mystery for me about the fundraiser's role. I had assumptions about what it looked like, mostly that their position was primarily like sales - constantly being out in the community and trying to drum up support. While this is still an important component of the job, I was surprised to find out that it more often involved developing engagement strategies for individual donors and facilitating that strategy with key people.
 
The old saying you need the right person asking for the right amount at the right time may mean I am doing a lot of behind the scenes work to prepare project leaders to engage the prospect and then following up after the fact with the proposal and gift agreement. I have sat in meetings where my only job was to meet the donor, bring them to the room and walk them out. In other cases, like creating a student award, I will be the main contact with the donor, so it depends a bit on the size and scope of the gift.
 
Did you do any special training or courses or, perhaps, mentoring work before you applied?
Because I made the move internally and had been meeting with and working with all the faculties as the Director of Research, I was a known quantity. I was able to move into the fundraising role with a team I knew and was able to draw on those relationships for mentoring in my new role.
 
I have been engaging more with AFP and CAGP, but in my first year my learning was primarily centered around understanding the Faculty's projects and people and learning specifics on a case by case basis. Until you've created a student award, toured a donor through a lab, or processed a gift of shares, you don't always know the questions to ask. The best way to learn is by doing.
 
So now you've been a Director of Research and a Director of Development. Can you tell me a bit about what the differences and similarities are between those roles?
Hmmmm... what is similar about the roles is that they are both client service roles. As the Director of Research I worked to develop a service model for multiple faculties and business units that have competing priorities to manage their expectations and manage the team's time and resources effectively. In a large faculty like the Faculty of Medicine at University of Calgary, I'm doing the same thing as a fundraiser - managing multiple faculty leaders and their fundraising needs.
 
I'd also say both roles require an ability to think strategically paired with an equal ability to operationalize that vision to get the job done. You need to be organized and detail-oriented too.
 
The day to day work is actually quite different. A day in my new role has 3 major baskets of activities. First, I spend a lot of time creating documents - be it a gift agreement, or terms of reference for a new student award or research program, filing contact reports, writing proposals and cases for support. This is the administrative piece.  Then there is donor interaction - getting out and talking to people, and bringing them into the Faculty to meet the researchers and tour the labs.  This is the donor piece.  And finally, there is the strategic piece. This involves thinking about your portfolio and moves, planning around groups of donors, and so on.
 
Is there anything you miss about the research side of the shop?
I certainly miss the people.  Thankfully I didn't move too far away and still have the opportunity to work with and see everyone.
 
In terms of the work itself, I loved data mining and crunching lists to find prospects. I did a little bit of this in my new role as we were looking to identify planned gift prospects for an event. What I noticed, is that while I knew how to extract the list of top prospects based on the typical criteria (years of giving, age, etc.), I was also able to review this list with a more critical eye, since I was also thinking about the cultivation strategies we would employ and letting the details of the list also inform those strategies. As a result, we originally intended to host an event, but after seeing the list, we realized we didn't have the depth of pool for one event.  It wouldn't make sense for all of these donors to attend an event because there were many reasons and areas for their gifts - memorial donors, donors to cancer research, mental health research etc.  So, we've decided to engage on a more one-to-one basis.
 
What about team leadership? First, what do you think is most vital for a leader?
I think an ability to see the big picture, think strategically, while also understanding how to get the job down is the best combination.  Motivating people towards that vision is crucial. I would also add that being able to listen will be a good asset in informing your vision and understanding what is important to people. With donors, you can often go in with assumptions, or what it is that you want, and you need to take a step back and let them tell you what they actually care about and want. As a Director of Research, I had to do the same thing listen to my team and our clients before creating a plan.
 
What are your biggest challenges (in either context)?
When I went into my new position, I thought my biggest challenge would be the specifics of fundraising -  tax law and all that. But as it turned out the biggest challenge was actually the scope of activity and the struggle to understand the context of the environment. Becoming reasonably knowledgeable about the faculty, not to mention the donors, has taken me most of my first year. Only now am I really getting the context and feeling like I can inform the strategy for donors and projects
 
Thinking back to when you made the transition from a Research Officer to a Director of Research. I know a lot of our members wonder how to make that transition. From your personal experience, what was most helpful in making that transition?
Look for any opportunities, like succession opportunities, where you can expand your role.  Can you move from being a Research Officer to a Team Lead, for instance? That didn't exist for me at the time, I wish it did. I did have the opportunity while I was a Research Officer to write and update the team manual and other projects like that, which was helpful.
 
If your structure is flat, then look for projects to expand your role and demonstrate your skills. Raise your hand and offer to train new staff - being able to teach what you do is important and it can be harder than it seems.  You may know exactly how to do the job but if you can't translate that to someone else, you may not like moving into a role where you are responsible for setting those standards. Other ideas may be to create a research manual, bring suggestions forward on new resources and/or data tracking improvements.
 
I was very lucky because when I made that move into Director of Research it was at the same time as we had decided to do a strategic review of our unit. I had the opportunity to work with a consultant and dig into how our research team compares with others. I also got to set the vision for where we want to go and how we plan to get there. We restructured and did some hiring. We evaluated our menu of services and templates. For example, we stopped a labour-intensive media monitoring project that had little impact and were able to redirect that time to other research services. I really had a chance to make it my own.
 
If people are thinking of moving into management, one thing I did well and am proud of was my interactions and connections made through APRA. As a research manager, you have to get outside and look beyond what your organization is doing so that you can go back to your leadership with informed decision-making. As a fundraiser, I have other people in my unit to talk with and strategize with on issues, but not as the Director of Research. I needed to go outside the university to do that comparative strategic thinking.