On the Move - Louisiana Community and Technical College System

Planting a Culture of Giving –
Reaping a World of Change
by Leah Goss
I
t was one of those meetings you dream about
in my work. I was sitting with the college
chancellor and her development director, along
with her chief workforce officer. A student
from the college who had attended the Salzburg
Global Seminar had also joined us. She was
about to meet her Salzburg sponsor, a global
employer who was bringing in a team to
discuss a workforce problem that they hoped
the college could solve. I had facilitated all of
these connections and this was the first time
they would all sit down together. At the end
of the meeting, a new partnership was formed
and new solutions were being formulated that
will lead to change for the better for another
Louisiana company.
This year marks my fifth anniversary in Louisiana.
I came here at the invitation of system president
Dr. Joe May to establish the LCTCS Foundation
and to work with community and technical
colleges to strengthen their fundraising
programs. At the time, with a few exceptions,
the colleges that had foundations had no
formal fundraising director or program and as
a result, were raising no significant money. The
concepts of an annual campaign or major gifts
for facilities were unknown.
Five years of investing in training, technical
systems, and leadership development have
caused true change in the fundraising landscape
for our institutions. Today most colleges have
dedicated development staff and organized
fundraising programs. I have worked with
colleges to merge or expand foundations in
order to accommodate college mergers around
the state. New foundations are being founded to
meet the needs of newly established institutions.
And the LCTCS Foundation continues to
manage the funds for those colleges that do not
yet have a 501c3.
The impact of this work also shows in the numbers.
Annual fund campaigns regularly raise over
$100,000. In addition, in just the past 2 years,
over $16 million in major gifts to 4 colleges for
facilities has been received, something unheard
of in the past. I invite you to read more about
the growth of college fundraising in the articles
about Fletcher Technical Community College
and South Louisiana Community College in
this issue of Moves Magazine and in Donors
Making a Difference starting on page 28.
In addition to supporting college foundations,
the LCTCS Foundation engages in other
initiatives vital to our growing institutions.
The cover story of this issue of Moves Magazine
entitled, “The Foundation for Louisiana’s
Community and Technical Colleges: On the
Move”, provides a detailed description of the
Foundation’s other key initiatives: advocacy
and public engagement, international programs
and partnerships, and the LCTCS Annual
Conference. I invite you to read this story along
with the Salzburg Global Seminar update, and
the guest editorials by Dr. May and Dr. Christel
Slaughter, outgoing board chair of the LCTCS
Foundation, to get the full picture. These articles
4 | Moves Magazine