John DeGioia, president of Georgetown University, vividly remembers nearly 40 years ago when he was a student at the university and he met Frank McCourt (No. 25), then a newly minted Georgetown graduate visiting his younger brother on campus. “We were introduced on Healy Circle,” near Georgetown’s front gates, Mr. DeGioia recalls.
Mr. DeGioia and Mr. McCourt, now a billion-dollar businessman and former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, struck up a friendship that has brought them together on countless occasions since then. Last fall they met again on campus, this time for the announcement of the university’s new McCourt School of Public Policy, made possible by a $100-million gift from Mr. McCourt.
Bart Moore, Georgetown’s vice president for advancement, says the gift was only partly the result of the long relationship between Mr. DeGioia and Mr. McCourt. It also came about because of the donor’s active involvement in Georgetown since his graduation in 1975 and his extensive family ties to the university: His father, two brothers, and a son are also alumni.
Mr. Moore says Mr. McCourt was a “stalwart” of the alumni club in Boston, where he lived for many years before moving to Los Angeles, hosting the club’s annual Christmas party. And he was co-chair of the Boston-area fundraising effort that was part of Georgetown’s $1-billion capital campaign, which ended in 2003. Mr. McCourt also served two three-year terms each on two of the university’s top volunteer leadership boards.
Before his pledge last year, Mr. McCourt had made donations to the university totaling more than $3-million.
“Philanthropy ultimately is still extremely personal,” Mr. Moore says. “People feel better about giving their hard-earned money to institutions that they know and trust, and deep personal connections will always play a part in transformational gifts like this one.”
The build-up
During a presentation to Georgetown’s governing board in late 2006, Mr. DeGioia mentioned that as the university set its sights on a new capital campaign, it wanted to elevate its public-policy program to full status as a school. The idea ignited Mr. McCourt’s interest. He was serving on the board at the time, and he approached Mr. DeGioia to offer his financial backing.
“I suggested to Jack that I’d do everything I could to make this a reality,” says Mr. McCourt.
Says Mr. DeGioia: “It was the greatest coffee break of my career.”
The courtship
“Money was never a defining issue in our conversations,” says Mr. DeGioia, but as planning for the new school evolved over the following few years, $50-million was “the understood placeholder.”
Mr. McCourt visited the campus three or four times a year for his trustee work, also meeting with Mr. DeGioia and other university officials to learn more about the public-policy school. The two also kept up a personal relationship, talking on the phone from time to time and meeting in Los Angeles or elsewhere.
The growing price tag
As plans for the school evolved to include, among other things, what would become the new school’s Massive Data Institute, the cost grew. At a breakfast meeting in late 2010 at a Beverly Hills hotel, Mr. DeGioia told Mr. McCourt that it would take $100-million to get the project off the ground. Mr. McCourt teasingly balked at the number, he says—pretending “that we’d have to get into a discussion about it”—but then quickly promised his support.
“Everything was more formed and on track,” Mr. McCourt says of the plan for the school. “I had more confidence and excitement around the $100-million than I would have had with $50-million before.”
The obstacle
Mr. McCourt withdrew from active talks with Georgetown for a couple years, focusing attention on his own personal and professional affairs, notably a messy divorce and the bankruptcy and then sale of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, which he owned.
Mr. McCourt continued to assure Mr. DeGioia during that time that “Georgetown can still count on me,” and, he says, the president continued to assure him that “when I got through all this, Georgetown would still be there for me.”
Near the end of 2012, Mr. McCourt says, “I was the happiest guy in the world when I placed that call to Jack and said, We’re ready to go.” Detailed gift discussions resumed, with Mr. McCourt including his four sons in the process.
The follow-up
A group of university leaders who meet regularly to oversee the school’s progress—including hiring faculty, recruiting students, and establishing academic partnerships—report to Mr. McCourt regularly on their progress. And the president always keeps him in the loop.
“If we have a good piece of news, I can’t wait to share it,” Mr. DeGioia says.
Mr. McCourt will remain tied to the school that bears his name in other ways, too. Because of his real-estate expertise, he is expected to be closely involved with Georgetown’s eventual plans to relocate the public-policy school from its campus to a building in downtown Washington.
And Mr. McCourt has made no secret that he and his family want to continue their support. In a speech at a dinner event last fall announcing the opening of the school, Mr. McCourt says he told his sons: “I want them to be there for this school and for Georgetown.”
The donor’s advice to fundraisers
- Don’t make it all about the money. “Nothing turns a donor off more than a call coming from [a nonprofit], and you know it’s just about the transaction. It’s important to put the relationship with the donor first.”
- Identify a donor’s interests. “Find a passion of the donor and connect that to the needs of your nonprofit. Then you’ll see great things happen.”
The university president’s advice
- Focus on relationship building. “It’s important to put the relationship first and really focus on the interpersonal more than on what it is you’re trying to achieve.”
The chief fundraiser’s advice
- Keep supporters in the fold. “People don’t automatically or unavoidably remain interested or engaged with their alma mater or a certain community or group. We have to make sure they stay connected in big and small ways to both inspire them and assure them that their gifts are meaningful.”
- Make sure the pitch is genuine. “A university or nonprofit has to advance an idea that is authentic and organic and about its own strategic growth. It can’t develop an ambition for the sole purpose of getting a gift.”
- Take your time. “Truly transformational gifts are very complicated. They require a number of different necessary elements, and you have to do a significant amount of work to take what was a broad ambition and bring it down to the details.”
