SIX strategic approaches are critical and would be useful in any efforts designed to rebrand any Nigerian University. These include the following: • Website and web presence. The importance of a great website for a University should never be under-estimated. These days, a website is even more essential than physical buildings as it is an important avenue through which the rest of the world can understand the goings-on and contemporary events in a University. When you mention the name of a University to potential funders these days in far away countries like the United Kingdom or USA, the first thing they do is to goggle the University and enter its website. If the University has a lousy and non-interactive website, you can almost be sure that they will not pursue the matter further. Universities desirous of recognition and funding must devote resources towards developing state-of-the-art websites that are dynamic, functional, interactive and communicative. The lack of expertise or not getting a good web designer and webmaster is no longer an excuse for not maintaining a good website, as these efforts can now be outsourced to countries as far away as India and China, at cheaper costs and greater cost-effectiveness. Apart from showcasing its products and uniqueness, the University should use the opportunity of its web site to communicate the research findings of its staff, especially the contributions they make to national and international development. Groundbreaking discoveries made by the University highlighted in its website would add to the respect accorded the institution in the international arena. • Strategic planning, including long term visioning. The development and communication of a strong strategic plan is another way Universities can brand themselves, and is something funders look for when they are thinking of investing resources in such an institution. I have seen the strategic plans of several Nigerian Universities — they simply do not meet the minimum benchmarks for institutional visioning that are recognized throughout the world. Many of them are “wish-listing”, which do not amount to purposeful strategic plans; many are inconsistent with the global developments and benchmarks in University education; while several have winding mission and vision statements that staff of the Universities themselves do not bother to remember, not to talk of the rest of society. Worst still, many Universities have strategic plans that are not well communicated. Several Universities do not have their strategic plans located in their websites, and they often do not take time to involve and engage their local constituencies in the evolution and implementation of the plans. Some of the characteristics of good strategic planning, many of which are often lacking in the plans posted by our universities include: accountability (often no description of who does what), balance (strategies and activities are often inconsistent with the stated challenges), flexibility (no in-built mechanisms for changing the strategies when they seem not to be working), manageability (the identification of too many strategies and activities that are not manageable within the specific timeframe), prioritization (the inability to prioritise and rank the most important work that need to be done to rebuild the system), realism (plans being out of tune with the realities on ground), specificity (the inability to tone down to specific strategies and activities), sustainability (not being able to think of ways to sustain great ideas within the system, and evaluation (often many of the plans lack in-built monitoring and evaluation mechanisms). In my view, Universities need to develop good strategic plans that address many of the above components as an important strategy to brand themselves. The relevant question a funder will normally ask when thinking of investing in a university is: what evidence is there that the contribution I make will be recognized and properly used, and that it will make a permanent impact on the life of the University? The only way such a funder can be assured is through examining the strategic plan of the University which provides strong evidence of collective efforts of staff and students in building the University that would be sustained beyond the tenure of a subsisting Vice-Chancellor or Governing Council. Thus, it is essential and critical that Universities should invest in the development, dissemination and implementation of strategic plans that describes a reasoned pathway for their future growth and development. • State of infrastructure and environment. The state of infrastructure is another parameter that can make and unmake a University. The image of a University can simply be enhanced by the improved state of its physical infrastructure. This looks trivial, but it is certainly one of the indicators that everyone looks to when assessing the performance of a University. A most important attraction these days is the state of University’s environment – highways, street lighting, well-paved and manicured lawns and flowers, and a generally neat and convivial environment, which stimulate learning are things people now look for in ranking and assessing Universities. A university with these parameters will earn local and international accolades and will attract scholars, funders and investors to itself, while a university without these elements will repel these important stakeholders. • Annual Reports. A most essential instrument that institutions now use to brand themselves is through the issuance of annual narrative and financial reports. To my knowledge, many Nigerian Universities are yet to institutionalize the culture of annual reports that is needed to showcase their performances in relation to the funding they receive. By contrast, Vice-Chancellors have tended to produce end-of-tenure reports, which tend to be bulky, and which often do not adequately report progress made in the implementation of their institutional objectives. We are in a world where integrity, transparency and accountability are crucial issues. By opening its governance and policies to the scrutiny of all relevant stakeholders, a University that issues annual narrative and financial reports is more likely to be believable, and will be better able to position itself strategically to receive national and international support and funding. By contrast, a University without such report is operating in an opaque system, and would not attract the sustainable sympathy of stakeholders, especially in the international arena. Thus, Universities need to begin to adopt the culture and practice of annual reports (both online and hard copies) as an important strategy to attract more attention and resources to themselves. • Events Handling and Management. Several events and ceremonies such as convocation, honorary degrees awards, matriculation, inaugural lectures and special invited guest lectures often provide opportunities to showcase and brand the University system. What people usually look for in such events include the profile and integrity of the special invitees, especially those receiving honorary degrees, the way the events are advertised and reported, the timeliness and promptness with which they are organized, and the quality and relevance of the speeches made. Such special events should also provide opportunity to educate the general public about the culture of a University and to highlight the important contributions the institution has made or is making towards national and international development. The tendencies for some Universities to offer honorary degrees to individuals that do not merit such awards have done considerable damage to the image of the University system. • Community impact. Yet, another way a University can brand itself is to show evidence of contributions it has made to the development of its immediate community. A University that understands the peculiar needs of its immediate community and is able to show that it is contributing to addressing those problems in unique and innovative ways, will attract more local and international attention and accolades than those without such posturing. In the coming years, one of the criteria for ranking universities will be the extent to which they contribute to development of policies and programs that lead to growth and development of their immediate communities. Building and Institutionalising fund-raising culture in Nigerian Universities In my view, fund-raising should now be institutionalized in the Nigerian University system and should no longer be administered as an ad-hoc activity. This is the only way Universities can begin to build a culture of fund-raising that would enable them leverage additional resources for their growth and development. Fund-raising ought to be devolved to all levels of the University system and must involve all staff, including management staff, and should be included in the teaching curriculum such that graduates of the University can ally with this function of the University when they become alumni. Thus, fund raising must be carried out at several levels: council level, Vice-chancellor/Senate level through the establishment of a senate Advancement Committee, strategic industry-research linkage (that should be promoted by the highest level of university governance), level of Convocation (through involvement of alumni, and should involve all staff (through training and re-training of staff on proposal writing) and students (by integrating fund-raising into the curriculum). At the Council level, Governing Councils should endeavour to set up Council Committees on fundraising that is chaired by the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council. A most important principle that ensures success in fund-raising is the involvement of the highest echelon of University governance. When Council Chairmen (and Vice-Chancellors) are personally involved as has happened in some Nigerian Universities, it demonstrates high-level commitment to the cause, especially when they are prominent citizens that have shown high integrity in the pursuit of their work. People are also more willing to give if the highest level of governance approaches them as they will then be sure that their contribution will be recognized and used judiciously. Council members with proven records and experience in fund-raising, who also have the required social and political contacts should be included in Councils committee on fund-raising. The involvement of the highest hierarchy of the University administration also enables the University to build long-term relationships with key and important stakeholders that the University can leverage upon over a longer period of time. This committee should work hand in hand with the University Advancement office that is described below. At the level of Senate and Vice-Chancellor, a purposeful and results-oriented Advancement office should be established that would carry out fund-raising on a permanent and full-time basis. In the past, Universities have tended to establish Advancement/Endowment Committees that work on part-time/ad-hoc basis, and whose members are full-time staff engaged in other University work or business. Such members either do not have enough experience or time to administer the committees properly, or have shown limited commitment or motivation to the task of fundraising. The ideal thing is for Universities to establish Advancement Offices that are administered by full time career staff with the requisite experience and training in relevant fields such as business management, advertisement and marketing, and that are knowledgeable and skillful in the use of ICT. Such officers should report through the Vice-Chancellor to Senate and then Council, and must have the required infrastructural, human and financial resources to carry out their work. Some of the best performing Advancement Offices AO) are often linked to Alumni Relations Departments, to Advancement offices in other local and international Universities and to various networks engaged in the business of fundraising for tertiary institutions. The CASE network is a good example, for which many Nigerian Universities are members, and that provides opportunity for exchange of information on funding sources and strategies for its participants. Some of the most specific functions of AO include the following: maintenance of a contact list of local and international funders, as well as that of Alumni and friends of the University, submission of concept notes and full grant proposals to potential funders on behalf of the University, organising periodic fund-raising events on behalf of the University, assisting staff with development of grant proposals and linking them to sources of funding, organizing trainings for staff on grant proposal writing, liaising with industry and other potential funding sources, and organizing visits of key officials of the University to a variety of funding sources. Thus, since AO is the engine house of fund-raising, all staff in this Department should have regular exposure to modern techniques of fund-raising through regular training. They should be actively mobile, proactive and dynamic persons who themselves believe in and are passionate about the vision and mission of the University. Strategic industry-research-grants linkage is another function that should be carried out of AOs of Nigerian Universities. To date, available evidence indicates that many Nigerian Universities have not succeeded in building strategic relationships and alliances with industries. Such relationships are supposed to be bilateral — industries benefit from the results of research that Universities conduct that they feed into new ideas and innovation for the development of new products, while universities receive substantial funding from industry to promote strategic research. The lack of capacity to conduct essential development driven and policy oriented research by most Nigerian Universities over the past several decades (which in itself have been due to inadequate funding of research) probably explains the dearth of industry contribution to university funding. However, since Universities have professional staff in disciplines such as medicine, engineering, pharmacy, law, accountancy, etc., it is possible to establish consultancy units within Advancement Offices that can bid for, and execute huge contracts in these related disciplines on behalf of the University. The contracts would have to be managed in such a way that they are mutually beneficial to all partners, ensuring that staff are not deviated from carrying out their core University functions. At the level of Convocation, fund-raising can also be promoted by Universities. Convocation is made up of all academic staff members of the University as well as University alumni. It provides opportunity to inform alumni about the problems of the University and to seek their strategic collaboration in addressing those problems. Convocation is one area that AOs can focus their attention to, in their fund-raising efforts. If properly and strategically managed, convocation is an important avenue that can galvanize the fund-raising efforts of the University. The essential and primordial role of alumni in University fund-raising will be described later. At the level of all staff (both academic and non-teaching staff), fund-raising should be made both an individual as well as a collective effort. In many American Universities, grant application is one of the most important activities of all academic staff and the ability to attract research grants is one of the major criteria used in the assessment and promotion of academic staff. Any academic staff that is unable to attract research grants in a University in the United States will not likely be tenured and would most likely lose his/her appointment. By contrast, many academic staff in Nigerian Universities often lack the experience and motivation to seek research funding, often relying on government research funding that has remained elusive. Evidence from several Nigerian Universities indicate that only about 10% of academic staff have ever attended proposal writing capacity building workshops; only about 15% have ever written a fundable grant proposal; while only less than 2% have ever received local or international research grants. Yet, there are numerous sources of funding of research grants in all disciplines, which academics can leverage through proper and strategic utilization of grant proposal writing. Thus, a most important function of a University AO is to build the capacity of academic staff in grant proposal writing and to assist them to write and submit fundable research proposals. At the level of students, I believe that it is now time to include courses on fund-raising, proposal writing or advancement in the teaching curriculum, so that the next generation of graduates and alumni will imbibe the principles of fund-raising and grant writing. Such a course should be a compulsory general studies course or it could be strongly embedded in courses on entrepreneurship that are presently being offered in many Nigerian Universities. Mobilization of Alumni, friends of Alumni and the Private Sector There is a growing consensus in the Advancement literature indicating that Alumni are an important and a highly motivated group that many Universities can use successfully as the focal, anchor or entry points into their fund-raising activities. Through Alumni, Universities can build friends and create unique relationships in both the private sector and political leadership through which they can leverage additional funding. However, experience suggests that for this to be successful, intensive efforts must be put in to mobilize, lobby and motivate alumni. The first step in mobilizing alumni is to have a strong Alumni Relations Office that regularly works with the Executive and members of the University Alumni Association. A spacious and prominent building should be made available within the University where Alumni can meet regularly, so that they feel welcome to the University at all time. If possible such an office space should be located close to the Advancement office, and should be managed by that office on a day-to-day basis. Indeed, the Alumni Relations officer of the University should be a prominent member/officer of the Advancement office. Additionally, alumni need feedback from time to time about events in the University, so that they can stay connected with their alma mater. The maintenance of an up-to-date register with contact information on Alumni is one of the most important functions of the Advancement Office, and is an essential avenue to provide regular information and feedback to alumni. Getting an updated register would apparently look like an awesome task, especially for first generation Universities whose alumni may be many and scattered around the world. However, with modern developments in ICT, this should not be difficult. I have seen some Universities carry adverts in newspapers requesting their alumni to forward their most recent contact information. Although this is an important method, it is less than satisfactory as the yield in terms of responses from alumni is often not great. I used this method myself when I was Provost at the University of Benin College Of Medical Sciences trying to mobilize College Alumni, and only thirty of the more than 3000 alumni responded. The full deployment of ICT will be the best modern approach and would be more successful in mobilising alumni. This includes the designation of an alumni registration section in the University’s website (including adequate information placed on website to enable alumni know the current developments in the University) and the use of email listservs of alumni and groups of alumni (which can be segmented by different sectors of Alumni Association). Also, development of social media – face book, twitter, U-tube — has provided yet another opportunity to reach and share regular information with alumni members. Indeed, there is no reason why Universities should not make their presence felt in these social media fora, as it will provide opportunity to reach many alumni in various parts of the world. The video-sharing social media forum, YouTube, is particularly interesting, as it will provide opportunity to share recent University events on video with alumni members. Having mobilized alumni, there are several ways the full strength and membership of alumni can be deployed to fund-raising. One method is the direct contributions made by alumni – a method that is being successfully used by many Universities in the United States. As Chairman of the Endowment Committee at the University of Benin, I coined the phrase “Alumni Contribution Fund”, and lobbied the President and members of the UNIBEN Alumni Association to accept the principles and to promote it among all their members. This, they graciously did (under the dynamic and patriotic leadership of Chief (Barrister) Richard Ahonaruogho, whereby they agreed that all alumni members should make a donation of not less than N500 per year to this fund. The Alumni President himself set the ball rolling by donating N100, 000, an amount, which he pledged to donate annually as his contribution to the fund. Unfortunately, the University has since not been able to follow up with the right purposefulness and aggressiveness needed to reach all alumni and to propel this fund. I strongly believe that this is an approach that can be used by many Universities to raise substantial funds. If the more than 200,000 alumni members of the University of Ibadan were to donate at least N10, 000 each annually (and many will gladly donate more), this would amount to a substantial amount of funds in additional revenue. Another strategy, which I also introduced at the University of Benin is “Friends of University Fund”, which the Advancement Office can also coordinate. The idea is to get Council members, Principal officers, staff, parents of students and alumni members to recommend one or more of their friends who would be willing to make regular yearly donation (no matter how little) to the University endowment fund. It is through the creation of this kind of Fund, that the private sector can also be reached by prominent alumni who may be able to reach their friends in the private sector on behalf of the University. A most important ingredient for success of these two initiatives is the level of coordination, transparency, follow-up and tenacity of purpose (the never-say-die spirit) provided by the Advancement Office. This is because for it to be successful and sustained, all contributors to the Funds must be regularly updated on their contribution, the growing size of the contribution and the use to which the money has been used. Management of Revenue Generating Ventures One strategy that Universities have used in recent times to generate additional revenue has been the establishment of revenue generating ventures. These include the establishment of business units such as hotels, staff schools, bookshops, agricultural farms through which farm products are produced and marketed, water producing factories, etc. To date, available evidence indicates that these business methods have yielded very little returns in terms of revenue generation for the University system. In my view, the reasons for this poor state of affairs are two-fold. In the first place, these ventures are often managed by University staff that have limited experience and motivation to manage them in ways that will yield profit for the system. Evidence from the business literature indicate that managers of businesses only do well if a direct benefit accrues to them from profits that emanate from the business. Thus, the fact that many managers of these businesses are University staff who are not assured of immediate personal benefits may reduce the propensity with which they drive for profit. This explains why sometimes some managers resort to malfeasance and malpractices in order to ensure that they derive some personal benefit from the business. This is also the reason why the only form of business that have been successful in many Nigerian Universities is that based on cooperatives, where staff manage the resources themselves for the greater good of all their members. The second reason that University businesses have often failed that I referred to earlier is the perception that the drive for profit is alien to academic culture, and that it would reduce the ethos of the University system in striving to drive for an egalitarian and equal society. Thus, the University is often afraid or reluctant to drive for full profit and only reaches for cost recovery in business ventures in order not to be seen as not pursuing social justice mission. My cautionary note is that a business is a business and its purpose must be clearly defined, and separated from the loftier and larger mission of the University system. If a University intends to establish a profitable business, it must do so using modern business principles and with operatives who are knowledgeable about ways to manage such businesses in which ways that will yield profitable returns. Thus, my recommendation is that Universities could outsource the management of such revenue generating units to managers and professionals who would be part owners of the business, based on the principle of equity ownership. Expertise in Grant application and grant management In recent times, several funding agencies and Foundations have showed renewed commitment to fund University and tertiary education in Nigeria. Foundations such as the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation have either single-handedly or collectively funded several Nigerian Universities over the past 50 years. These Foundations established the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa (PHEA) through which they have funded several African Universities including Nigeria since year 2000. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation joined the funding Consortium in 2005. The University of Ibadan is one University that was heavily funded by the Ford Foundation in its formative years, and has continued to receive funding from the Foundation, while Universities like Ibadan, Port Harcourt, ABU and BUK have received substantial institutional funding from the Macarthur Foundation over the last couple of years. NISER and the IITA are two key institutions that were built right from their inception by Foundations like the Ford and Rockefeller. These Foundations have provided individual support as well as institutional support to advance the transformation of Nigerian Universities over the past years. Individual support has focused on capacity building for teaching and research in these Universities, while there is currently a renewed wave of interest by the PHEA in supporting initiatives targeted at building a New Generation of Academics in Africa. A similar initiative is the CARTA grant (Consortium for Advanced Research Training in Africa) recently made to the African Population and Health Research Centre (APHRC) by the Ford Foundation to assist African Universities (including Nigeria) in training a critical mass of PhD graduates in key disciplines that are essential to Africa’s development. Recent institutional support to Universities by these Foundations has gone into several initiatives, which include the following: • Improving institutional bandwidths through the Bandwidth Consortium, • Increasing the capacity of Universities to manage their ICT networks, • Enhancing the capacity of Universities to use educational technology to improve teaching and learning, • The improvement of gender equity in institutional enrolment and graduation, • Strategies that improve access to marginalized groups, • Improvement of physical infrastructures of Universities, • Improvement of the management systems of Universities, including the development of strategic plans, and • Initiatives that improve the implementation of research policies and programs in the Universities. Clearly, there are numerous funding opportunities open to all Nigerian Universities through these funding sources and mechanisms, which now increasingly includes several bilateral and multi-lateral donor organizations (UN Agencies, UNESCO, etc.). Additionally, Universities can bid for research grants that are increasingly available in almost all disciplines of human endeavour. The universities through their advancement offices or their Special Research or Service Delivery Units can respond to calls for these grant applications or can submit letters of inquiry (concept notes) to relevant donor agencies requesting funding on various strategic initiatives. If some Nigerian NGOs are now able to source grants that run into millions of dollars, there is no reason why Universities with far greater collection of experts cannot obtain bigger grants. This is currently the case for several Universities in the developed world, but increasingly several Universities in other parts of Africa are also able to attract and receive huge international research grants. If Nigerian universities are desirous of obtaining huge international grants, they must focus on the following: • They must be able to come up with innovative ideas that are do-able and that contribute to the achievement of their mission or that of the larger society. The development of a long-term strategic plan can guide donors to important areas of need of the University. • The AO of University should compile a list of funding agencies according to various fields of interest and make this available to staff on a continuous basis. This list should be updated regularly and any new granting opportunities should immediately be communicated to staff. • Universities must develop and entrench a culture of writing good proposals. No matter how innovative and good an idea is, it will not be funded if a good proposal is not developed to support it. Thus, the University should devote resources towards building capacity for good proposal writing in the University. • Universities must establish grant management policies and procedures that will ensure that grants that are received by the University or in which the name of the University features are properly managed. The elements of proper grant management include: ability to achieve the project objectives in a timely manner, good financial management and reporting, and ability to write good periodic narrative and financial reports in accordance with the guidelines and requirements of the grantor organization. In the past, some Nigerian Universities have been blacklisted by international agencies because of their inability to report on grants made to them. • A grant management Department should be one of the most important components of a comprehensive Advancement office. This Unit or Department will be responsible for monitoring all grants made to the University and ensuring that they are managed in a timely fashion with reports (both narrative and financial) submitted to the funding agency within the time frame of the grant. It is actually better not to receive a grant than to receive a grant and manage it poorly. As funding agencies talk to each other, poor management of a single grant in a University can have the terrible effect of denying access to future international funding to all arms of the University. By contrast, when grants are properly managed, funders tend to build long-term relationships with such institutions. Conclusion In conclusion, it is not impossible for Nigerian Universities to generate additional resources outside of the funding they currently receive from government. However, this can only happen if they make efforts to deepen their governance mechanisms, promote the concept of transparency and accountability throughout the system, demonstrate their strategic importance through effective communication and branding, and imbibe the use of the new technology platforms to promote their work. Governing Councils have the most important responsibility and task to leverage additional resources and funding for Universities they preside over. Therefore, they should champion the cause of fund-raising, ensure that funds received are judiciously used and well managed and that fund raising is institutionalized throughout the University system. A University that relies solely on the vagaries and uncertainty of government funding would soon find itself locked in under-development and retarded growth, and would certainly be left behind in the renewed global initiative to promote innovation and knowledge production.
Posted on: Tue, 24 Sep 2013 15:29:56 +0000
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