For college presidents, stepping into the role comes with solemn obligations and a steep learning curve. Nowhere is this more true than with fundraising. Even if they have experience engaging donors and "making the ask," presidents can find it difficult, foreign, or just uncomfortable.
As we have written previously, however, "[t]he president is the visionary, tone-setter, and in some ways the frontline development professional" who has more power to attract essential funds to the institution. Presidents must see philanthropy in a positive light, as something that is mission-activating rather than distracting. Those who find fundraising misaligned with their strengths or interests may encounter difficulties in today’s resource‑limited environment. We've seen it in our own experiences with campus leadership. As executive recruiters, we see institutions coveting presidents who take fundraising seriously—who see it as a fundamental part of their job.
This article was originally published by the Association of Fundraising Professionals. Permission to republish has been granted.
As fundraiser-in-chief, you need not go it alone, of course. The relationship that a president builds with their Chief Advancement Officer (CAO) is critical, something to be cultivated and appreciated. The partnership – whether with a CAO you "inherit" with a new role or hire on your own – can make or break fundraising success, alumni engagement, and even institutional stability.
While cabinet members like the CAO often have extensive playbooks on managing up, presidents may receive little guidance on how to reciprocate and structure their partnership. In this article, we hope to provide the skeleton of such a playbook: advice for you as a president to develop a constructive bond with your top advancement leader.
Make Relationship Building a Presidential Priority
Sounds simple enough, yet a president's agenda is telling in terms of what matters to them. You must develop the relationship with your chief advancement officer with intentionality:
Carve out time. In addition to weekly or biweekly standing meetings with your CAO, dedicate space on your agenda for advancement activities, including empty slots the CAO can fill.Expect that they, for understable reasons, will push to have you on the road frequently to meet with key donors. Early on, establish the percentage of your time you are able to dedicate to travel, and block specific days for advancement to "own" and schedule.
Up your game. Fundraising is not innate and requires professional development. Look for ways to hone your skills by, for example, engaging with the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and other professional organizations. Attending conferences with your CAO offers shared learning opportunities, a common set of frameworks, and valuable benchmarking against peer institutions. Take full advantage of their experience and insights. Seek out guidance from other presidents as well, particularly those who have led major campaigns. Ask them about the approaches that have proven most effective in working with their advancement leaders.
Use shared dashboards and meaningful metrics. Being on the same page requires agreed-upon metrics, those that track the institution's fundraising pipeline, donor engagement metrics, campaign goals and progress, and proposal stages. A common misstep is allowing the chief advancement officer to define key metrics independently. The president should ensure that KPIs reflect institutional mission, strategy, and priorities. Also important are clear definitions for each metric, as advancement often tracks financials differently than finance and accounting. When presidents collaborate with their CAO to co‑create advancement priorities, they tend to develop more realistic philanthropic projections and strengthen campuswide alignment around fundraising initiatives.
One important note: when creating metrics with your CAO, honestly assess your own knowledge base and work with your advancement team to complete a data-driven evaluation of your institution's program. Selecting a campaign goal, for example, by looking at institutional peers without investigating the size of their staff, fundraising history, and pipeline in comparison with yours would be a mistake that could rupture your relationship with your CAO and put your institution on a path to failure.
Bestow proper authority. Some presidents, eager to move quickly or unsure how to evaluate their advancement leader, unintentionally underutilize the CAO. As a president, realize your advancement leader can and should provide:
- Visibility into stakeholder sentiment, including trustees, donors, and long‑standing institutional influencers.
- Political navigation and risk assessment, especially around sensitive donor or board dynamics.
- Strategic financial insight, especially when philanthropy factors into institutional priority setting, capital planning, budgeting, or campaign feasibility.
To this last point, it is important to include the CAO in all significant planning processes, so that fundraising informs institutional priorities, and vice-versa. View your advancement officer as a full strategic partner, not just an expert fundraiser.
Make it personal. Whether a president chooses to build close personal relationships with their cabinet members is a matter of individual leadership style. Because a president and CAO, however, often travel together, they have an opportunity to develop a deep relationship which should benefit their collective success.
Present a United Front
Donors want to engage with presidents—but they also want to see a cohesive institutional strategy that doesn’t shift depending on who’s in the room.
Approach donor relationships as a unified team. Such dynamic duos understand when the president should lead, when the CAO should lead, and when both should be present. This includes:
- Cultivation (often CAO-led)
- Stewardship (shared)
- Closing gifts (usually president-led, with CAO support)
Clear roles and joint planning prevent missed opportunities and mixed messaging.
Trust the CAO. Recognize that, as a president eager to make an impact, you may at times champion ideas that are not realistically fundable. Your advancement leader often has a well‑honed sense of which initiatives will inspire donor interest, and which are unlikely to gain traction.
Resist the temptation to freelance. Create a shared advancement strategy, rather than two competing ones. Don’t build your own donor list on the side, a sure way to erode overall donor and CAO confidence. When either party does their own thing, donor strategy becomes fragmented and results will be inconsistent. (This doesn't mean the president can't have one-on-ones with key donors, only that they must keep their chief advancement officer informed if they do.)
Conclusion: The Best Partnerships Are Intentional
Presidents and CAOs succeed or fail together. Their partnership must be built on shared strategy, consistent communication, and intentional trust. When you as president embrace the relationship as a true collaboration, you create the conditions for transformative philanthropy and, in turn, long-term institutional health.
