Do the Smart Thing

There was a news story from ABC News on Yahoo last week that drove home to me once again how much of management practice is just common sense – and how uncommon that kind of thinking really is. According to the report, a hospital located in a small town in Oklahoma solicited a donation of $500,000 from the most successful person who ever lived there and supposedly promised to name their new building in honor of his mother. However, the hospital is claiming that the donation was made anonymously and without conditions, while the donor is claiming that the hospital development people showed him sketches and mock-ups of the building that included his mother’s name on the sign, and are now going back in their word. The hospital is claiming that they can do whatever they want with the money “without further discussion,” and the donor is suing the facility to recover the entire amount of the donation. If I were the judge hearing this case, the urge to have my bailiff kick at least one of these parties in the behind would be overpowering…

First off, major gifts are solicited on the basis of two factors, ability and affinity: whether a given donor has the ability to give you half a million dollars at the stroke of a pen, and whether he or she likes you (or your cause) enough to want to do that. Both of these qualities are rare enough that annoying a major donor is completely asinine, especially when all he is requesting is a sign on the front of a building. If they actually agreed to a naming arrangement, and then backed out of it once they had the money, these actions exceed stupid and plummet directly into fraudulent, but even if the celebrity is just asking for naming rights after the fact it’s still probably not worth alienating him. Especially when the community you serve is as small as Yukon, Oklahoma (population 22,000) and the celebrity is as big as Garth Brooks…

On the other side of the issue, I think we can safely assume that a man who is the second best-selling solo artist in the United States in history (only Elvis Presley has sold more albums) knows something about contracts and their enforcement, and could at least find out about donations and grants. Half a million dollars may not be that significant to Mr. Brooks, but I would still expect him to have required a contract specifying what his money would be used for, and what consequences would occur if it wasn’t, before signing the check. At the very least, given some of the professional misconduct cases we’ve been seeing in the past years, I’d want something in writing that guarantees the people I’m giving the money to don’t just pay themselves $500,000 in annual bonuses and refuse to discuss it with me any further. On the other hand, if Mr. Brooks actually has such a contract, this should be a very short trial and a very long afternoon for the hospital board…

Most of my readers (assuming I have readers) have already heard me say that Major Gifts solicitation is a specialist function – not as much as Planned Giving, which usually requires the services of a probate lawyer, but still not something that should just be casually undertaken by whoever has the afternoon off. The sad fact is that if you’re going to be a philanthropist – or even if you’re just a wealthy celebrity – you probably shouldn’t just make random donations without written agreements, and even if you have a contract you can probably expect someone to try to screw you over every so often. I don’t know if the hospital board sold the naming rights to more than one donor (which is fraud, and will probably result in criminal charges), or was planning to siphon off the funds for some other purpose (which is at least unethical, and is potentially breach of contract or fraud as well), or is just getting caught in the crossfire, but I hope they’ll at least consider doing the smart thing. I know a really good sign painter they could use…