What Fundraisers and Donors Should Learn From the Varsity Blues Scandal

This fall, millions of young adults will pour onto college campuses, some for the first time. The college years are fabled ones — full of green quads and intellectual promise, a rite of passage for those fortunate enough to attend. However, the admissions scandal last year showcased the tarnished side of collegiate life — desperate parents, greedy institutions, entitled children — and has put universities and their donors on notice.

When the scandal broke, I recalled a recent trip to the grocery store. I had slipped into a parking spot next to a pristine high-end SUV. A six-figure SUV is not noteworthy in Aspen, near where I live, but the rear window display was. It held five stickers representing four Ivy League colleges and Stanford — a royal flush — which seemed to highlight the preordination between privilege and elite education. I was struck by the perfect symbolism in the fusion of brands: the spotless two-ton asset and the almost unattainable institutions.

While the scandal confirms what many had suspected — that our beloved ivory towers often perpetuate American economic disparity by favoring the wealthy in the admissions process — it also provides opportunity for change. It brought to the forefront an issue I’ve been reflecting on for decades: how and why donors should ensure philanthropy isn’t self-serving.

These days we’re in the heat of the college-application process with our daughter, and the rigamarole has given me further opportunity for clarity. I grew up with privilege and its expectations. In high school, I applied to Williams College, and I got in, despite an average score on the math portion of the SAT. I have no doubt that my family legacy — my father and sister attended — helped leapfrog me over that pesky math liability and into admission. However, I wound up second-guessing my intelligence and struggled with the constant hum of mild anxiety, all of which was reflected in my freshman-year academic performance. Ultimately, I pulled it together, received an excellent education, and made a few close friends, but those were not the happiest days of my life.

After graduating, I initially gave to my alma mater. But as my children grew, I realized I was giving to raise our children’s profile — repeating a pattern that didn’t help me flourish in college, or as an individual.

Seven years ago, my husband and I decided to postpone any significant giving to our alma maters until after our children graduated from college. The decision dovetailed with the call for less self-serving philanthropy by Darren Walker of the Ford Foundation, and it felt right.

Walker’s now-famous essay argued that philanthropy was in a rut, served too small a sector, and, all too often helped the philanthropists themselves. He called for change, bridge-building, and donor introspection. Walker inspired us to examine every aspect of our own giving and eventually led to my writing for the Chronicle.

Too many in the privileged camp take elite college admission as their due, and all of us are ensnared by a system that sanctions entitlement and reinforces conformity. The notion that each of us is sufficiently polished at 18 and can follow some yellow-brick road with graduate school and good career moves along the way is an elite fantasy in a disrupted world.

Although I never bought into the belief that cutting in line is “the way it’s done,” I certainly benefited from a financial safety net and a network of influential people. I know that this dynamic is fairly entrenched, but I also know we can do better.

I am not advocating for a reduction in educational giving. I understand the sincere desire to give back to places that enrich us and teach us how to think critically while creating bonds to other students and teachers that last a lifetime. We need an educated populace more than ever, and we need to nurture intellectual excellence.

Instead, I encourage donors to do more soul searching on any agendas attached to their giving. At the very least, donors need to hold a conversation with the institutions they support about their expectations for their philanthropy. Phil Buchanan, president of the Center for Effective Philanthropy and author of Giving Done Right, says it well: “If you are making a donation with an expectation of personal benefit, then that’s problematic and that should be a warning sign — reconsider your philanthropy.”

Naturally, this cuts both ways: if an institution wants to be more authentic and less transactional, it must have a politic conversation. There is nothing wrong with encouraging loyalty and making family connections, but it’s a slippery slope when candor is checked in favor of the check.

For example:

• Does the $5 million grant coincide with a child hoping to gain admission?
• What are the institutional principles if the child applies but does not qualify?
• Does the gift come with expectations of high-profile ties to the college like a trustee slot?
• Would an institution walk away from gifts that are blatantly transactional or are tied to an unsavory donor?

Donors and fundraisers must be proactive and ensure that these types of conversations take place. All parties should talk about inequities and challenge entrenched mind-sets. We need to give our young the freedom to succeed and to fail, to embrace independence and integrity, gain confidence, and forgo constant oversight. Collectively, we need to understand the world is broader than a brand, and life is more than a smooth cocktail-party transition and that we need to advocate for a more equitable society and a sustainable planet. We are, after all, spinning together.

Isa Catto welcomes suggestions for future topics. She is an artist and executive director of the Catto Shaw Foundation and is writing a book about inheritance.