38 DEANS AND DEVELOPMENT activities, mindful of a possible return to the faculty at a future time. Deans do not wish to “cold call” prospective donors because it is an inef- ficient use of their time. They do not like to fundraise in distant places without some hope for tangible success because their work load back home grows while they are away. They prefer to fundraise around events they are already planning to attend, such as professional conferences. They place some of the fundraising priorities higher than others, often favoring donor gifts to current funds that help current students and faculty, rather than favoring bequests or other promises of future gifts. This is especially true if the Foundation or the provost unwisely employ some set of metrics that invites immediate fundraising results, rather than taking a long-term approach. The development officer must also understand and value the dean who is able to speak often and elegantly about the liberal Arts and Sciences. Here the dean occupies a unique role on the campus, and one of the best things he/she can do to facilitate fundraising is to promote the liberal Arts and Sciences, especially if a constituency fundraising model is being used. In turn, the dean needs to understand the world the development officer inhabits. The development officer lives in a world of imperfect data. This leads to many false leads for the gift officer and the dean. A key element for fundraising is estimating the wealth of potential donors. And central to that estimate is the prospect’s home address and neigh- borhood. But that data is sometimes misleading. People can show up in a database as wealthy when the reality is that their discretionary money is tied up in their home. Because of the high market value of single family homes in desirable areas people typically appear wealthy. What the database does not show is their high mortgage payments over the course of several decades, perhaps with a balloon payment at the end, or other constraints on their apparent income. A dean I know showed up for dinner at a restaurant in a posh community where she expected to meet with a wealthy donor, based on database estimation of wealth. The dean was taken aback when the donor pulled up in an old, high-mileage car. In the course of polite conversation, the donor circled around to the fact that he lived in a lovely home in a tony residential area, but that