By MARTY LEVINE
“Very few people grow up and say ‘I need to be a fundraiser,’ ” Kris Davitt told the Feb. 29 Coffee and Conversation event from Staff Council. But Davitt, senior vice chancellor for philanthropic and alumni engagement, wanted a career with “a sense of shared service for something that felt important.”
She was born and raised in Rhode Island and had begun her post-college work in financial consulting outside of New York when, “I realized that the outcome of my work was not interesting to me,” she said. A move to Philadelphia, where she worked for several small human-service nonprofits, including one focused on homelessness, provided satisfaction in her work. Plus, she noted, “those are small shops, so you learn everything.”
From there she gained top positions at the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University and finally here. With higher education, she said, the nonprofit mission is the same as in the small shops, but now the mission has turned “macro.” Instead of trying to solve homelessness in one particular area, for instance, she was now working in places where people studied the overall causes of homelessness — and so much more.
For those wishing to break into the philanthropy field, she advises: “The best thing about fundraisers is, we don’t keep secrets. We like to talk about what we do,” from travelling to meet potential donors to prospect research and writing stories that show off Pitt
She labels her work here “donor-centric.” “I think we do a better job: We recognize that you cannot simply tell people what they should do with their money,” she said. “Our job is to respond to what the donor is interested in.
“By the time you’ve actually asked for money, you’ve worked through a lot,” learning about potential donors’ lives and careers, she added. “What do they want to do? What is it that motivates them? Or concerns them?” Especially at the top gift levels, “they want to make sure that what they want to do has meaning.”
In her business, “They say: ‘If you’ve met one donor, you’ve met one donor.” Every donor has a different story. Fundraising is not asking for money. It is identifying people’s passions and affinities, among many other factors.”
Asked about mentors, she pointed first to her father. “He was an IBM-trained salesman. The motto was, ‘Nothing happens until somebody sells something.’” She also said that her husband has been “incredibly supportive.
She learned important lessons from the “great, and terrible, bosses” one has, she said. “Building your career, it’s not linear — it’s about what you learn about yourself.”
Gathering support for a large institution like Pitt involves learning to tell its story — and helping individuals within Pitt to learn to tell their part of the story. If you are dedicating your life to teaching and research, she said, “the difficult thing is understanding that not everybody gets it.”
People doing important work at Pitt need to learn how best to talk about it, she said: “Why does it matter?” And her department can help them hone that very skill, she said.
The most challenging part of her job, she said, is that, “We’re never done.” Her department may continue to surpass the old fundraising records, but “we can never raise enough money. That can be a challenge.”
In the end, she said, “if I’ve accomplished anything, I’ve created a really great environment for people to do really great work.” And the fact that giving to the University increases “shows people maybe connect with the University in ways they didn’t before.”
Marty Levine is a staff writer for the University Times. Reach him at martyl@pitt.edu or 412-758-4859.
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