Organizing the Dean’s Office for Development 59 chapters, Arts and Sciences graduates will generally associate with their departments, not the college. Therefore, they are most likely to attend events, read newsletters, or respond to requests from the heads of departments rather than from the dean. Events like theatre and orches- tral performances also attract individuals from the community and alumni from other colleges who may be interested in supporting the arts. Each department often has an “alumnus of the year” which recruits these individuals back to campus for a recognition ceremony. The more activities open to alumni and the community that the department spon- sors, the more likely they will generate referrals. Referrals are the names of individuals that department chairs and assistant/associate deans send to your development officer to learn whether they may be major gift prospects or at least annual giving pros- pects. Referrals may come about when an alumnus sends updated infor- mation to a department, but they occur more often when alumni attend events and appear interested in one or more initiatives underway in the department. When a referral is sent, additional information (if known) should be sent to your officer including degree program, year of gradu- ation, current employer, and any other information of interest (e.g. their business is taking off, etc.). The development officer (or administrative assistant) will check the database for additional information on the indi- vidual. If the information from the referral or from the database looks promising, these referrals will become part of the development offi- cer’s portfolio. A prospect who has already demonstrated engagement with the department is more promising than a random draw from the database. Departments that send referrals will end up with more major gift prospects being developed, which encourages them to buy into the referral process and support it with further referrals. When sufficient referrals are being submitted from your departments, you have a strong case for adding development staff to your college. The very ease with which departments connect to alumni raises the nettlesome issue of maintaining accurate addresses for the college’s alumni. Your institution has a centralized database where all alumni addresses are kept. Departments are frustrated with this database, as they are frequently restricted from full access to this information (due