The Petrus Development Show

In this episode, Andrew visits with Jamie Cappetta, President of Our Savior Parish and USC Caruso Catholic Center. Jamie started his career as a street minister in South Boston but found his way into development thanks to an invitation from John Flynn, one of the co-founders of Petrus. In this episode, Andrew and Jamie discuss his career transitions, the great speaker series at Yale Catholic Center, his strong feelings about the importance of goals and metrics, the powerpacked board that he manages at the USC Caruso Catholic Center and much more.

Jamie started his career as a street minister in South Boston. After some time discerning the priesthood, Jamie went to work at the Catholic Center at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst as the director of development. Jamie was later recruited to the Yale Catholic Center and then the Caruso Catholic Center at the University of Southern California.
The Yale Catholic Center, led by Fr. Bob Beloin and Kerry Robinson secured $22M from 1,200 donors to build a new Center. Jamie was recruited to fundraise for a chapel and build up the annual fund.
The More House Lecture Series was an excellent way to engage the students of Yale as well as alumni and benefactors. Jamie was tasked with raising $25-35K in donations for most of the lectures while he was working there. The series covered topics such as Faith & Science, Faith & Law, Faith & Culture, and Faith & Poetry.
At Yale, Jamie explained that, "you have to start in the head to move to the heart."
At the USC Catholic Center, their mission is to Evangelize, Welcome, Convert and Transform the students of USC.
Jamie has applied a more intentional focus on metrics to the ministry at USC. They track activity and results in areas such as Marketing, Advancement, Campus Ministry Programming. The main goal is 10% growth year-to-year but that goal can be different depending on the metric.
"We are in sales, and we're selling Jesus. Over time, I have seen the 'product' get better. Fr. Richard wants us to be the In-n-Out Burger of campus ministry. Making a really good burger, and doing it over and over again and not getting distracted on a lot of other french fries and drinks and stuff."
Jamie helped create a new set of by-laws for the Board. This meant losing 12 members of the Board initially but have now added 12 members to get back to 24 members. The Board also has 2 young alumni and 2 student members. One inclusion in the by-laws is an annual commitment level of $10,000. This is variable based on a member's ability to secure additional funding for the ministry. Jamie admits that, "For me, the number is not as important as having 100% participation." Jamie hopes that "our goal is to have each board member see us within their top 3 to 5 philanthropies."
The Catholic Center is currently in a campaign to raise $30M for endowment and programming expansion. They are currently at $13M in commitments and hope to announce in spring 2019 after reaching $20M.
Jamie has served as a Petrus consultant for many years in addition to his work at Yale and USC. This was valuable in his development as a development professional. "I'm a baseball player and whenever you coach someone in baseball, having to articulate how to do something, it makes you a better player. The same translates in my experience with Petrus. When I have to step back and listen, it forces me to break it down into simple steps and not make it overwhelming."
Some book recommendations:

Stephen Covey: 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Henry Nouwen: Spirituality of Fundraising
Sherry Weddell: Forming Intentional Disciples
Pat Lencioni: Five dysfunctions of a team
 
For more information about Jamie Cappetta and his work and to connect with him, visit https://www.catholictrojan.org or https://www.petrusdevelopment.com/team/jamie-cappetta/

In this episode, I visit with Frank Shannon, Executive Director of Development at St. Mary’s Catholic Center at Texas A&M University. Frank has been at St. Mary’s since 2013. My conversation with Frank covered a lot of topics, including his career before St. Mary’s, how he transitioned from 25 years in higher ed to a Catholic ministry and how the current campaign at St. Mary’s is going.

Frank’s first job out of college was as a loan officer for the Stephenville Savings and Loan but left the S&L business to became a development officer at Texas A&M after a call from Bob Walker, Vice President for Development at the Texas A&M Foundation.

Frank’s training at Texas A&M mostly came from going on donor calls with Bob Walker and other senior development officers. It was during a meeting with Pat Zachry, long-time donor for A&M, that he realized that his work as a development officer was really about the good that he could help do for the organization. He learned how to turn common interests with donors into relationships that allowed him to demonstrate the difference that they can make.

“People don’t give money to institutions, they give money to people.”

After the A&M Foundation, Frank moved to the 12th Man Foundation as Associate Executive Director where he raised money for Aggie Athletics. He believes that his ability to connect with people and engender trust was what made the 12th Man hiring committee decide to hire him. Next, Frank moved to Mississippi State University where he was leading a team of development officers. Frank admitted that the “toughest job in development” is leading a team of fundraising professionals. He was responsible for setting others up for success.

After two years, Frank was recruited to go to The Citadel where he led a team on a $100M capital campaign. This was a challenge, but they were successful in reaching their goal. After finishing the campaign, Frank started an executive search firm and then was recruited back to Texas to work at Baylor University. Frank believes that, “to grow, sometimes you have to leave an organization.” However, you “have to do a good job where you are in order to earn that opportunity to step up.”

Frank was invited to come work at St. Mary’s in 2013 by Fr. David Konderla to help lead a campaign project. Phase 1 of the project was to expand the Student Center. This was a challenging project for a variety of reasons. Frank learned in his marketing courses that, “you don’t sell the steak, you sell the sizzle.” The first phase project was very “meat and potatoes” without much sizzle. The other reason it was challenging was because people knew that the next phase would be to build a new church would was much more attractive. They were successful in the first phase and raised $11.3M toward the project. They have now broken ground on that building project.

Phase 2 of the campaign is to raise $20M for a new church. They do not know what the actual cost will be because the church has not yet been designed or engineered. Of the $20M goal, they have raised $14.5M including at least 6 gifts of $1M or more. This demonstrates a high level of trust because donors are supporting a project without knowing what the final product will look like.

Currently, St. Mary’s has an annual fund of $1.8M but needs to increase to $2.0M for FY 19. Frank knows that this will not be possible without asking individual donors for significant annual fund gifts. He has told donors that they do not want to sacrifice annual fund gifts in exchange for campaign gifts. Their Living Faith Society is a name for their recurring electronic giving program. They currently have $80,000 per month coming in from 1,400 donors. Strategies for growing this program includes presentations at Mass, parents appeals, Christmas appeals, Matching Collection drives, St. Mary’s Gives, personal asks and more.

One strategy that they have implemented for stewarding their existing donors is a new program called St. Mary’s Honors. This event is open to any donor who has lifetime giving to St. Mary’s of $50,000. They are invited to attend a special dinner in the fall where they are thanked by staff and students for their giving.

The St. Mary’s Development Team now has 7 members including part-time help. They set aside three days every year for planning retreats and professional development.

One couple that Frank mentioned as being particularly supportive is Joe and Shelley Tortorice. They recently made a major commitment to the Church Campaign and have been invited to speak to the Aggie Catholic Ambassadors. Joe stressed to the Ambassadors that “we all need to invest in others.”

“The magic happens when the donor gets engaged. That usually happens through a story.”

Some book recommendations:

Mega Gifts by Jerry Panas
Perfectly Yourself by Matthew Kelly
Totus Tuus: Fr. Brian McMaster

Frank attributes much of his success to his fear of failure and his love of people. His final message is that if you are struggling with what to do or how to succeed, you need to do two things, “Just go back to work and keep asking for big gifts.” Three people who have influenced Frank include Dr. Ed Davis, Dr. Bob Walker and Dennis Prescott.

For more information about Frank Shannon and his work and to connect with him, visit https://aggiecatholic.org.

In this episode I visit with Mike Perkins, President and CEO of Heroic Media about his career, what he has learned about fundraising and ministry along the way and how he came into his current role with Heroic Media.

Mike began his career as a youth minister but was asked to help with fundraising projects along the way. When he was discerning how to support his family and remain in ministry, he received two recommendations in the same day to consider working as a development officer.

People sometimes equate philanthropy and sales but Mike believes they are very different. He never “pitches” prospective donors on giving to an organization, but he presents opportunities to support. Mike always believes that he works on behalf of the benefactors and not the organization.

Mike believes that if development officers who choose their organizations wisely can move up in the nonprofit world and eventually become leaders and even president.

Mike’s first job in development was with Texas Wesleyan. Later, Mike worked for Audubon Texas, the University of Dallas, Catholic Campus Ministry Association (CCMA), Petrus Development, the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) and now Heroic Media.

Mike recommends getting reading lists from graduate programs in development. Mike suggested:

Certificate in Catholic Philanthropy: University of Mary in Bismarck, ND
Masters of Arts in Philanthropy and Development: Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota in Winona, MN

Mike encouraged young development officers to remember that it is easier to raise $1M from someone who can afford it than $1,000 from someone who cannot.

For reading materials, Mike suggested the following books:

Achieving Excellence in Fundraising by Hank Rosso
Conducting a Successful Capital Campaign by Kent Dove
Designs for Fundraising by Harold Seymour
Relationship Fundraising by Ken Burnett
Give to Live by Douglas Lawson
Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Woman Clothed with the Sun by John Delaney

For more information about Mike Perkins and his work and to connect with him, visit: https://heroicmedia.org/