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‘Just tell us how much you want’: Rethinking donor relationships in a Nordic context
Journal of Education Advancement & Marketing,
5
(2),
126-135
(2020)
Abstract
Higher education fundraising is very much in the making in Finland and in the other Nordic countries. In Finland, the governmental matching funding campaign of 2014–2017 had a profound impact on how advancement is being developed. The donor bases are dominated by foundations and companies instead of alumni and individuals. This paper stipulates that conventional ideas about the donor relationship need to be adapted to the Nordic cultural context. It concludes that Higher education institutions in Finland and the other Nordic countries are in a constant process of adapting advancement practices from elsewhere to the Nordic and Finnish context.
Keywords: fundraising; donor cycle; campaigns; matching funding; cultural contexts; foundations; corporations
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
Teppo Heiskanen is Director for Advancement and Corporate Engagement at Aalto University in Finland. The integrated advancement office at Aalto includes corporate relations, fundraising, alumni engagement, career and recruitment services as well as customer relationship management (CRM) development and analytics. Before joining Aalto in 2016, Teppo was an independent consultant in fundraising and international cooperation for five years. From 2003 to 2011, he worked for the Nordic Council of Ministers in Lithuania and Denmark in governmental relations, as well as organising international support for the European Humanities University, the Belarusian University-in-exile in Lithuania. He started his career in higher education management at the University of Helsinki in the 1990s in international relations. He also has experience in media and communications, and he has written six travel guidebooks. He has a master’s degree in theology from the University of Helsinki, and he has also studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
