4 DEANS AND DEVELOPMENT Establishing clear priorities is hard work, but critical to the success of the development effort. Once the college has forged a document setting its goals in priority order, the next step is to review it with a development officer who knows your institution’s donor pool and can advise on your priorities. Some will be of little or no interest to your typical donor; any may need to be re-crafted and recast to attract interest. Others may not fit comfortably with development goals being pursued at the University level. As described more fully in the chapter by Boocker and Gates, once your development goals are firmly established, it is time to identify and prioritize projects to further those ends. Those projects must fit clearly with your college’s mission and build on its strengths, have the poten- tial to have an impact on a major portion of the college, and have a group of donors who might support them. One of the major reasons that development efforts fail, both at the college or University level, is a lack of focus—too many projects, projects that are esoteric or grandiose and won’t attract support, or projects that aren’t exciting and hold little promise to move an institution forward. However difficult prioritizing is, you can only raise private funds for a relatively limited set of projects at any one time. To be successful, you must know your priorities. Only then can you hone your “elevator speech” into a coherent, believable, and persuasive pitch to donors. So now you are ready with your elevator speech. You and your devel- opment officer have practiced giving that speech and have it down cold. Having two to three versions of it, which you can adapt for different audiences, prepares you for unexpected situations and to have more confidence that you can deal with the vagaries of individual donors. Creating a Development Operation in Arts and Sciences A development officer within a college of Arts and Sciences, or law, or education, is often referred to as a constituent officer, one who repre- sents the constituency of Arts and Sciences faculty, students, alumni, and friends, rather than the University as a whole. The typical argument for creating a Development Office in Arts and Sciences is that it will be closer to the dean and academic departments, more responsive to their