84 DEANS AND DEVELOPMENT they may not be alumni, they recognize the institution provides their businesses with employees, brings stature and status to the community, and enriches the intellectual, cultural and economic life of the community. They support an enterprise that contributes to the vitality of community—and to their own financial success. • People increasingly give in support of specific projects or programs, rather than to undesignated purposes. (It’s hard to be passionate about replacing an air conditioning system or boiler, but it can be enormously uplifting for a donor to meet a recipient of a scholarship they endowed.) As an exercise, you might examine your own practice of giving. What do you support? Why? How much of your own income or savings do you contribute annually? What would it take for you to be willing to double the amount you give to your favorite charity on an annual basis? To set up an endowment during your lifetime? To include an organiza- tion in your estate plan? These are exactly the sorts of questions you will be asking of potential donors, both directly and indirectly. Your own motivations and rationales are not likely to differ from those of your actual and potential donors, and so can serve to guide you. If you do not have a habit of giving to the institution for which you are expected to raise money, you will have a harder time convincing others that they should provide support. How do you know when to Ask? For what? For how much? Making the ask includes 1) identifying the needs of your college, articu- lating them concisely in a case statement, and 2) matching these needs to the individuals who are most likely and ready to support those needs. This sounds straightforward, but the steps, stages, sub-stages and moves that might need to occur when working with a donor can be time-consuming or frustrating. But you will experience an exhilarating moment when a donor embraces a project with great enthusiasm. To identify and articulate unit needs, follow these steps: