By Dr. Michael Vienna

Michael Vienna, PhD, is Director of Athletics and Recreation at Salisbury University, where he has worked since 1989. The program is consistently ranked in the top 25 of the NACDA Directors Cup, and Vienna was named the group's Athletic Director of the Year for Division III's Southeast Region in 2007. He has served on many state, conference, and national committees during his career and has received the Salisbury University Presidential Appreciation Award. He can be reached at: mpvienna@salisbury.edu.

Being an athletic director today, at any level, requires proficiency in fundraising. It is rare to find a position announcement that does not emphasize the ability to raise external funds, and retention decisions can hinge on how much money you bring in every year. From cultivating donors to running money-making events, we are required to increase revenue any way we can.

But there is another aspect of fundraising that is just as important, yet can easily be overlooked: internal fundraising. This entails developing strategies to ensure your department receives its fair share of university monies.

Especially in these difficult economic times when money for athletics can be seen as cutable, a plan for securing resources is critical. As upper-level administrators continue to make budget cuts, we need them--as well as faculty and staff--to understand the importance of athletics.

The obvious time to make the case for internal resources is during the normal budget planning period as established by the institution. However, lobbying for funding should also be an ongoing process. If you show the worth and needs of athletics only during a formal annual presentation, you are not doing enough to secure a strong future for your department.

MAKING FRIENDS
The first step to internal fundraising has nothing to do with money or arguing for your cause. Instead, it involves making sure athletics is seen as an integral part of the institution.

If upper-level administrators and faculty view the athletics department as its own separate entity, they will have little sympathy for your needs. But if they understand how athletics fills a critical role in the university's success, you will have built-in allies at budget time.

A key part of this integration is for the athletic director to be a respected and trusted leader on campus. This means extending yourself beyond normal athletics business and becoming a partner in the larger community.

One way to do this is through service on committees, even if they don't relate to athletics. This could include anything from judicial affairs to search committees to various student and staff advisory groups. Ideally, try to serve on a diverse array of groups that touch different areas of the campus. Such work shows you are interested in assisting with issues outside of sports and provides an opportunity to exhibit your leadership and decision-making skills to important people on campus.

Another good idea is to attend school-sponsored activities. Just as we often talk about the importance of campus support at our athletics events, we must remember it is a two-way street. Theatrical productions, art shows, student festivals, retirement functions, ground breaking ceremonies, honors convocations, and many other special events look for support through attendance. Being present at these happenings shows you are interested in other pursuits and are a team player. It's also a great way to chat informally with other campus leaders.

Faculty and student government meetings should also be on your radar. If your faculty governance structure is open to everyone, try to attend as many meetings as possible. If not, look for other opportunities to interact with these people, such as campus forums.

Participating in this type of engagement will help to develop relationships, but just as important, it keeps you in tune with the struggles of others. For example, you may learn at a faculty meeting that professors are very frustrated with a freeze on money for professional development. Now, even though the athletics department has funds set aside for staff development, it may be best to temporarily limit those activities. Otherwise you run the risk of alienating the rest of the campus by appearing to have privileges others cannot afford.

Working with colleagues can also help you to form collaborative relationships. For example, getting to know the staff in the physical plant might lead to sharing a piece of equipment for landscaping athletic fields. Another area could be working together to increase energy efficiency within facilities.

It's great to also get your coaches and student-athletes to engage with others across campus, which will further the work you are doing as athletic director. Such activity could even be a part of a coach's annual evaluation criteria. The more positive interactions any athletics staff member has with other campus groups, the more your department will be seen as an integral part of the institution.

ONGOING UPDATES
Along with campus interaction, regular updates to those making the final financial decisions is an important tactic. It may seem easier to wait until budget time to present facts and figures, but it is better to continually feed information to supervisors. This keeps your department at the top of their mind and shows you are proactive.

One of the most important things to share with upper-level administrators is a set of goals for athletics, and how the allocation of internal resources affects those goals. This provides the key people in the budget process an understanding of the items deemed most important as well as a reference point to gauge progress.

Then, be sure this list of goals is always on your radar. It can work well to put it on your office bulletin board or in your day planner where it will catch your attention. As you accomplish or adjust goals, update your supervisors. In addition, bring them to senior staff meetings and discuss them at appropriate times during the year. By making the goals important, the individuals who control the purse strings are more likely to remember your needs when making decisions.

Along the same lines, let others know about department struggles and successes. This should include budget trends as soon as they become apparent. For example, when transportation bids come in or officials' costs are due, it is time to document trends from previous years and anticipated costs in the future. In a short note or conversation, share that information with the appropriate administrator(s). Other areas where it is typically easy to show budget trends include salaries, health benefits, travel, on-campus meals, and housing.

Your updates should also include positive news, especially those things that benefit the entire university. There are obvious ones, such as a great victory, a coaching milestone, or when a team achieves an academic award. But other positive happenings can go unnoticed unless you bring them to people's attention. For example, highlighting community service performed by staff and student-athletes is a great way to indicate you are producing well-rounded individuals who are helping improve town-gown relations. These events also present a perfect chance to tie your department's efforts to the school's mission statement or strategic plan.

Positive exposure for the school in the media should also be tracked. You can quantify this by measuring the column inches the athletics program has generated in various publications and multiply those inches by the amount that publication charges for each advertising inch. This will demonstrate how much this exposure would have cost if the school had to buy that many inches of advertising space. Most upper-level administrators understand that exposure pays financial dividends down the road through increased enrollment and fundraising success.

Demonstrating the economic impact of your program can be a good strategy, especially if your institution is a significant part of the local economy. Visiting teams and spectators usually end up spending a lot of money, and your own student-athletes' parents tend to visit the area to see their children compete more than parents of non-athletes. A study of these and similar impacts can show exactly how the athletics program affects business in the community.

Another significant area to track is money brought in through enrollment of athletes, which includes not only tuition but fees, room, and board. At enrollment-driven schools it is fair to question whether there would be as many students if not for the recruiting efforts of the athletics department. Would the school be filling all of its beds (and have enough male enrollment) if it did not have a football team, for example? Calculate the income your student-athletes bring in to the school, and you may find it actually exceeds the cost of running athletics.

In addition, if you are at a state school, examine whether the athletics program brings in more out-of-state students compared to the rest of the student body. On most campuses, out-of-state students pay significantly higher tuition than their in-state counterparts. If the recruiting efforts of the athletics department creates greater income for the school by bringing in more out-of-state students, you can argue that athletics deserves the funding needed to maintain or improve these efforts.

Another possible selling point is retention. If your student-athletes have a greater retention rate than other students, the admissions office will have fewer spots to fill each year, reducing costs.

Academic performance studies are yet another way to quantify your department's contribution to the school. One of the best indicators is if your student-athletes have a better graduation rate or grade point average than the rest of the student body. But there are other areas to document as well, such as disciplines or majors that student-athletes excel in or any athletic-academic awards your athletes have won.

If your student-athletes complete formal evaluations on their athletic experiences, be sure to share these with campus administrators. In the assessments, it is important to ask questions about areas related to the university mission and strategic plan so you can show the athletics program is succeeding in areas important to the school. Demonstrating that your student-athletes are having a positive and beneficial experience can carry a lot of weight.

In addition, evaluations can support funding requests for things that athletes indicate are important. Conversely, if your evaluations show negative feelings about areas that are poorly funded, it is more than reasonable to request additional support.

FORMAL REQUESTS
Proactive communication ensures the issues, needs, and value of the athletic program is ingrained into upper-level administrators' minds. However, this does not mean you should take the formal budget process casually. At budget time, it's critical to tie all your ongoing work together in a formal presentation that impresses those making the decisions.

Naturally, it is imperative to follow any established protocol requested by the budget office. In addition, it is important to provide a report that is professional, clear, and understandable. All your numbers should be correct and easy to analyze. Requests should be reasonable and reflect an understanding of budgeting issues facing the entire institution.

Whenever possible, demonstrate the ways that the resources allocated last year to athletics have benefited the school. Be as specific as possible in illustrating how and where monies have led to current successes, both athletically and academically. This will help build confidence that your department has invested wisely into successful programs for the student-athletes and the university.

Your presentation should also include benchmarks comparing your department to that of other schools. In choosing peer departments, select programs that you compete against and have at least as much success on the field as you. They should also be institutions with similar funding patterns and admission standards.

The most common areas to benchmark are staffing and facilities. To garner some of the most beneficial and accurate information, you first need to develop trusting relationships with colleagues, who will then share sensitive information like salaries in a confidential manner.

However, always be careful that you are comparing apples to apples. Take recruiting budgets, for example. On some campuses, coaches have to pay for postage, phone calls, duplication, mileage, and so forth out of their budget, while on other campuses, such expenses may be absorbed by a common administrative budget.

Throughout the formal budget request period, it is important to strike a balance between persistence and professionalism. While raising your voice and getting upset over potential cuts may grab someone's attention, a polite, respectful, and measured approach will pay longer term benefits.

There is nothing wrong with being strong in one's conviction, but do not lose sight of the big picture. The administration has to satisfy several competing interests and it is crucial to maintain positive working relationships with your superiors, regardless of the way the numbers fall. In these tough economic times it can pay dividends to be a team player, which is what we preach to our own staff and athletes. And lastly, throughout the process be mindful to thank the senior administrators for their time and support.

Athletics is one of the most important programs on campus, but faculty and staff don't always know this. When everyone is fighting for institutional dollars, you need to advocate for your department in creative and meaningful ways--throughout the entire year.

Sidebar: BEST APPROACH
While having a year-long strategy for internal fundraising can reap many benefits, it's important to know you can provide administrators with too much information. They already have a stack of documents to look through and meetings to attend every day. You don't want to be a pest.

That's why tact and timing are critical with this approach. Know the best times to contact administrators and figure out how they like to receive information. Some might prefer an e-mail, while others want a phone call or a monthly meeting. Be conscious of how you are being perceived and listen carefully to their requests.

Finally, always remain positive even if others are not. This will ensure that your message is received well and you are seen as a great person to work.