Creating the development game plan

An interview with Barrett Toan '69 and Kimberlee Klesner

On Tuesday, March 11, 2003, the Developments editor sat down with Barrett A. Toan '69, chair of the Development Committee of Kenyon's Board of Trustees, and Kimberlee A. Klesner, the College's vice president for development, to talk about Kenyon's development objectives and fundraising priorities. Toan, who is chief executive officer of Express Scripts, hosted the gathering in his office in Maryland Heights, Missouri, just outside St. Louis.

How have your careers evolved since college? How did you get interested in development?

Toan: You could say I've had three careers since I graduated from Kenyon. The first was in teaching, at the Asheville School in North Carolina. I taught history, and it was a great job--probably the best job I've ever had--but, with residence-hall duty and such I only got a couple of days off per month. I went from there to graduate study at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, where I concentrated in public service. I worked for three governors, including one in Arkansas and two in Missouri, and then I came to St. Louis and got involved in health care. It's been interesting to be part of that world as the approach to health care has changed in the United States, away from a physician-centered model.

Klesner: Right out of college, where I was a French major, I went to business school. After I got my M.B.A., I took what was originally supposed to be a one-year assignment at the Harvard Business School, working on the annual fund. Then I was asked to stay another year, and another. It was a terrific way to get an introduction to institutional relations.

Who decides what Kenyon's needs are? Is there a process in place for reviewing needs across the College?

Klesner: When we were starting to think about the last campaign, we put together a planning committee, a broadly representative group with people from all the College's major constituencies. We also did research on our alumni and parents--how they felt about Kenyon, how well informed they thought they were, and how willing they would be to support the kind of fundraising we were proposing. Then, with the committee's final report in hand, and the results of our research, the College's Board of Trustees held a two-day planning retreat. Out of that came the "needs list" for the campaign, the priorities for our fundraising efforts over those next five years.

In the interim between campaigns, members of the senior administrative staff consult with their divisions and bring their needs to senior staff meetings for consideration. The senior staff then makes recommendations to the board about priorities. The board endorsed the current slate of projects in September 2001.

Toan: Any great institution has to maintain an active dialogue with all of its constituencies. In the College's case, that means faculty members, students, trustees, alumni, parents, administrators, staff members, and the people who live in Gambier. We need to ask questions constantly about what people see as the greatest needs and how to address them. Board members are very interested in these things, and we know no single group has cornered the market on the best ideas. The board spends a lot of time on issues in this area, always with a view to finding new ways of balancing high aspirations with limited resources.

How does Kenyon determine the order in which it will address various areas of need?

Toan: It's an interactive process. Our needs will always exceed our ability to provide for all of them, so the most pressing must be addressed first. Right now, that means concentrating on completing the funding for fitness, recreation, and athletics. We've determined that there's a clear deficiency in that area for the College, one that we can no longer ignore.

Klesner: It's often a matter of matching opportunities with needs, too. If we know there's someone out there--among the alumni or the parents, or at a corporation or foundation--who has a special interest in one of our areas of need, and who wants to make a gift now, then we can adjust our priorities accordingly. But we always make sure that our endowment and giving to the annual funds for operating support remain high priorities. They're the long-term essentials.

What are the major development initiatives for Kenyon in this period between the "Claiming Our Place" campaign and the College's next comprehensive fundraising effort?

Toan: Our primary focus is on maintaining the momentum Kenyon's efforts have attained in the past few years. The College made great strides in a number of areas during the campaign, and the successes show us just how far we can go. We're doing everything we can to build on those successes.

One place you can see this is in the construction of the new facility for fitness, recreation, and athletics. The opportunity to build came as a result of a wonderful anonymous gift of $25 million, designated for this purpose, which allows us to address a great need at Kenyon. In fact, it was the "next need" on the College's list, following the ones we addressed in the campaign.

The Center for Fitness, Recreation, and Athletics will benefit the whole community. Because of Gambier's size, most things Kenyon doesn't supply simply aren't available, and a facility of this sort is absolutely essential. I think we'll see that it creates tremendous new vitality in the community when it opens in the fall of 2005.

In the longer term, we'll be looking for more money for scholarships, because we can expect the need for them to continue growing. We'll also be looking for more permanent support for academic, extracurricular, and auxiliary programs, from film studies to Hillel to the Kenyon Review.

Klesner: About the fitness, recreation, and athletics project, I'd just add that the new building will not only duplicate what we have now but also add several new facilities that have been lacking at the College. There will be four indoor tennis courts, for instance, eight squash courts, and four racquetball courts. There'll also be classrooms, spaces for aerobics, dance, and yoga, a large fitness area, even a small theater.

Because of the $25-million gift and bond financing for another significant part of the construction costs, Kenyon will be able to build the center for just $16 million in new gifts. Of course, "just" is a relative word; we're working hard to get those gifts.

In the time we have now between campaigns, though--in the time that we're calling the "interim campaign period"--we'll be concentrating on initiatives that address two strategic concerns. One initiative is building up the College's planned-giving program, which is an area in which we lag behind a number our peer institutions. This is so important because bequests are one of the best means for building Kenyon's endowment. The small number of past bequests goes some distance toward explaining the College's historically low endowment, although it's a result of several factors.

The other initiative addresses young alumni involvement in the Kenyon Fund. I know our youngest alumni are deeply committed to their alma mater--I think as much as at any college in the country. Recent and current programs like "100-Percent Senior" and the Young Alumni Association have helped to increase the overall participation rate, but I absolutely believe there is no reason in the world that Kenyon's participation rate couldn't be 50 percent or higher, among the very top in the country. Because of our demographics, it's our newest alumni who can make that happen.

What do you see as a college's responsibilities for providing fitness, recreation, and athletic facilities for its students (and others in the community)?

Toan: Liberal education is all about balance, balance of mind, body, and spirit. Fitness and recreation are clearly important to learning and development for all, and athletics offer an important way for some students to test and prove themselves. Having access to these opportunities is not incidental to growing and developing as a young adult.

I went to a small high school, I taught at a private boarding school, and I went to a large urban graduate school. All of them had better facilities for fitness, recreation, and athletics than Kenyon had. I think we've realized that the time has come to do something about that aspect of the liberal-arts experience at the College, about making room for these activities and making many more opportunities much more widely available.

When I taught in secondary school, I was asked to coach a sport in fall, winter, and spring. Athletics and recreation were incorporated into every day's activities. I began running with my teams, and I found I developed whole new relationships with the students as a result. It was also fun, and it led me to a whole new sense of community. I still try to maintain my running schedule, as much as my travel obligations will allow.

We used to joke that while Ohio State had two-a-day football drills, Kenyon had two-a-day poetry drills. But there's no reason why the physical and the mental can't coincide. Exercise contributes to the ability to perform, across the board. Having a vibrant facility for fitness, recreation, and athletics is one of the best things we can do to express the values of the College. It shouldn't be seen just as a competitor for our resources.

Klesner: This will be a tremendous addition to the community. As someone who lives in Gambier and has a family, I can tell you how much the local kids admire the Kenyon athletes, and how much they like to hang around the gym and the pool. Students have been coaches for both of my children, and I'm sure we'll see more of this kind of College-community crossover when we have more welcoming facilities.

As Barrett says, liberal education is about the mind, body, and spirit, and I think we need to make sure our students have the best facilities for exercising all of them!

Barrett, as chair of the Development Committee of the Board of Trustees, and Kimberlee, as vice president for development, what do you believe to be Kenyon's greatest current needs?

Toan: We need to continue the momentum of the campaign, and we need to complete funding for fitness, recreation, and athletics, but most importantly we need to increase the endowment. That's our first, second, and third priority.

The endowment makes everything else possible. At Kenyon, we attend to what we can in the way of needs. Many of our competitors, with endowments of half a billion dollars or more, can attend to anything and everything, and not just needs but wishes, too. Below the level of $400 million to $500 million in endowment, a college has to rely on extraordinary gifts, and extraordinary efforts, to do those things.

Kenyon is able to function so well today with a relatively small endowment because of the discipline the College applies to the budgeting process and the budget itself. But Kenyon's endowment must be addressed; most colleges with smaller endowments survive only through heroic efforts, and that's not a good way to run an institution.

Klesner: I couldn't agree more. Building the endowment has to be job one, for the College and the alumni. I know that Kenyon alumni are more than up to this challenge. We need to continue to work together in an ongoing campaign for the growth of the endowment. Our efforts in the planned-giving arena and with young alumni are vital to creating awareness of just how important it is to increase the College's endowment.

Barrett, why were you willing to take on the role of Development Committee chair?

Toan: Kenyon is like no other college I know. It stands for all the right things in the world of liberal-arts education. The College enriched my life immeasurably, at a very exciting time in my life, my coming-of-age. Anything I can do to help that be a possibility for someone else, I do willingly.

There were also practical issues that I took into account in making the decision. I knew that Kenyon has managed its resources, limited though they may be, extremely well. And I knew that a gift to the College could make a substantial impact, that it would be much more likely than at other places.

All these things made it easy to say yes. I think we all want to be able to help those institutions that are special to us, in which we truly believe.

Barrett, what do you see as your greatest goal as Development Committee chair?

Toan: The most important thing is to maintain an active dialogue--to ask the right questions and seek the best answers. The key for Kenyon is to find the necessary resources not only to maintain but also to develop the College.

Klesner: When it comes to dialogue, Barrett practices what he preaches. He recently met with the Kenyon Fund Executive Committee, the alumni group that oversees the annual-giving program.

Toan: Some very interesting things came out of that dialogue. For instance, when alumni are asked for gifts, they want to know that they'll be able to afford to send their own kids to Kenyon, that there'll be scholarships available to them. They need to know that their gifts help make scholarships possible. They also need to know that the College's mission remains the same as when they were students, that Kenyon hasn't deviated from the liberal-arts path.

Klesner: One of my favorite things is reading the letters we get from scholarship recipients who are writing to thank the donors. Some of the letters are truly amazing, describing unbelievable hurdles the students have overcome to make it to college. It's no exaggeration when many of them say they couldn't be at Kenyon without their scholarships.

Why do you believe people give to Kenyon? Why should they give?

Klesner: One of the interesting things you find in meeting Kenyon people is that they give for very different reasons, and some of those reasons are very personal. Connections made at the College tend to last, whether they're connections with friends, with faculty members, or with others in the community.

Toan: A Kenyon education is a gift in many ways: a gift from a parent to a child, from a faculty member to a student, from a benefactor to future faculty members and students. When you walk down Middle Path and see the contributions of past generations, it makes you want to be a part of the College yourself after graduation.

Philanthropy is an essential part of the economy, although it's not without its critics, of course. However, I can't think of any other place where donors' gifts go so far. Kenyon's budgetary discipline, and the rigor with which it prepares and administers its budgets, make it a sound investment. I've been on other boards, and my experience has shown me that gifts to the College truly make a bigger difference.

I also think, at this moment, there's another reason for giving to Kenyon, and that's the excitement about a new era of leadership, with Georgia Nugent soon to be inaugurated as our eighteenth president. We're looking forward to great things, and we'll all want to feel that we're part of them.