 HBCU Dodgers Radio, welcome back. Today, our privileged guests to talk about our latest chapter in significant philanthropy for historically black colleges and universities is the vice president of institutional advancement at Benedict College, Ms. Leandra Hayes Burgess, who is here to tell us about a very unique scholarship and endowment fund that the school recently announced earlier this month. That could be a model for HBCUs and really is a standard for generational giving at black colleges. So, Madam Vice President, thank you so much for joining us this morning. No, thank you very much for having me. So we're talking about the Melton and Ruth Kimson and Dowd Scholarship. And this is not unique in the sense that this is a gift from a family that has deep ties to Benedict. But it is very unique in that you have plans for and roots in continuing the gift for generations to come. Can you tell us a little more about the specifics of this gift to the institution and why it's so important for Benedict? Well, I can say that the Kimson family, first of all, is just a very, very treasured family to the institution. We have a of the four siblings that attended Benedict College, which is why this scholarship was established in honor of their parents, Melton and Ruth Kimson, who were share coppers and wanted to be able to attend college, but of course had to work the fields and weren't able to, but they, which is also remarkable and commendable, were able to send four children, two boys and two girls, to Benedict College to kind of fulfill the dream that they weren't able to pursue. But Melton Kimson, one of the children who is also a graduate and one of the four siblings was very, very vested in wanting to give back and serve and give time to Benedict College. In fact, he served as a trustee and is currently trustee emeritus for a little over 40 years at Benedict College. And he is the link and I would probably say the leader among the family that really kept everybody very connected to Benedict College over the years. So while it's interesting that none of their children, the action of the four siblings attended Benedict College, they were very immersed in the Benedict College experience, coming to events and games and knowing from Dr. Kimson exactly what was going on with the importance of Benedict College to the African American community, to the state of South Carolina. He's an educator, started off as a mathematics teacher and then moved on to be a principal of several elementary schools and then worked as state supervisor for the State Department of Education and then eventually was appointed by former governor Richard Riley as the executive director of health and education and human services. So really had a pulse and a commitment to education and ensured that his siblings, his nieces and nephews and children were beholding to that but really, really experienced some great times at Benedict College so that they fell in love with the institution. In fact, they helped to recruit and send students from other places throughout the state to come to Benedict as well. And while they do have some other HBCU graduates among their family, it's just those four siblings that actually graduated from Benedict College. So that kind of gives you a sense of the longevity of the relationship and the depth of the relationship that they as a family have established with Benedict over the years. So this started with a $15,000 gift. Tell us about the details of what it will support and how it will grow the college's endowment fund and opportunities for development and student access. Well, it is a need-based scholarship fund which of course we definitely are excited about because as we know, we still serve a unique population of students that definitely have those gaps and we need to provide for that. But they're also beholding to their roots in the sense that because the Milton and Ruth Kimpson they grew up in Calhoun County in South Carolina. So they have established it so that the students that would be coming from that area that we're recruiting would certainly be given first opportunity to receive that award and then they've expanded it to some other counties around. They plan to invest and continue to grow the fund on an annual basis and in fact, even with most endowments when they're established, of course there has to be roughly about a year investment time period before we actually get the yield of the interest to award. So they're going to be funding that out of pocket the first year. So that they can ensure that this fall will be able to actually award a student first. And so there's this commitment and I will say even more about the commitment is the seed was planted by our trustee emeritus in terms of how the gift was established. He actually has a fund that he established first, now maybe about six to seven years ago that has grown to roughly almost the six-figure mark. And so this is again the second one that they've established as a family but they created a family foundation in order to do it. And what's important about this is that it is actually the children of the four siblings that attended Benedict College as well as a couple of the grandchildren, some nieces and nephews that are funding this. So that in itself is something that we are extremely excited about. We are trying to create more of a legacy model in terms of legacy families. We have a lot of alumni that had several siblings that attended Benedict College at the same time. So as we move into our 150th celebration in 2020, that's actually one of our initiatives where we are identifying all of those families and presenting this to them as an opportunity to invest at a greater scale here at the institution and help us to kind of expand our outreach and opportunity for students who need this, especially within the state of South Carolina where still 60% of our students come from the state in terms of our total enrollment. Well, that's what's so interesting about this is because the parents could not attend college and sent their four children. And four children grew up, got married, had babies. The babies did not attend Benedict but remained tied to the institution so much so that they became philanthropically involved. So could you explain how the college has taken a role in cultivating a relationship with that family to not only be supportive of it, but to specifically go above and beyond and say, now we're gonna create thousands and thousands of dollars for Benedict to keep going? Well, interesting enough, I certainly can't take full credit for the cultivation of this. As I stated before, I think this has definitely been a relationship that has been in the making for 40 or more years, probably even longer than that. And several people across the institution have been heavily involved with that, certainly from presidents to our staff and alumni relations. I, myself, began the conversation with the Kimson Foundation representatives and the children in the fall of 2018. I've only been with the institution for a little over a year. And at that time, they had already decided that they wanted to make the gift. They were just trying to figure out the timing, the amount, actually, because our threshold right now is at $10,000 to establish an end-out fund. In my conversations with them, I kind of persuaded them to take that up because I know we're actually gonna be looking to increase that, probably within the next year to year and a half as we move into our 150th celebration. And so they were intrigued by that and said, well, you know, give us a little bit more time and we think that we can grow that fund. So it was a series of conversations. And then I think just engagement from different events. And I've had an opportunity to speak with several of different members of the family at different points and have some meetings and conversations. And the enthusiasm that they had for, we have to make this happen. We have to honor our grandparents and our parents because we realized that what they were able to achieve as sharecroppers and sending four children to Benedict College was truly a remarkable feat. And what they instilled in them was the value of education and the value of an HBCU and the value of just perseverance and when you make up your mind to do something that it may not be possible for you but you can certainly create a legacy for future generations. So I hope I'm answering your question to the extent that you would want but they are a very passionate family and a very successful family. Because when I look at what their children and the grandchildren have achieved, you know, they have a, we have Senator Marlon Kempfman who now has the office space that's named for him in the Charleston area and he's a grandson of the extension of that family. They are educators and lawyers and you know, they're well traveled and well versed and so it was really a great seed that was planted in them in terms of the sky's the limit of where you can go but also giving back. There's in my conversations with them over these last few months just hearing about what they have been doing in their communities and especially as it relates to education and making sure that they were planning season and like I said, they've helped to recruit students to come to Benedict College. And what I do get a sense of is that with the four siblings that they needed to always make sure that they kept Benedict College in mind in terms of their children and grandchildren. And when they came to sign the gift agreement and we really did have a wonderful private affair with them, with the president myself and members of their family, they actually brought some of the great-grandchildren as well. And so planning that seed of this is Benedict College, they told the story of the family legacy and this is where we want you to consider when you get a chance to make those decisions about where you wanna go to college. So the exposure, it's amazing that they keep Benedict in the forefront of their family legacy and we are just head over heels in love with them for doing that but also establishing this new model and they're willing to help tell that story so that we can create this type of philanthropic giving among some of our other alumni and constituents. It's interesting because in philanthropy, a lot of people think it's just easy, like go raise some money. Oh no. And that's one of the hardest things to do because each individual donor to whom you talk will be moved by something different. In other words, when did you ask, how did you ask me? Did you not, maybe I don't want you to ask me, maybe I want you to tell me what's great about your school and let me decide. So there's a psychology and a science behind developing philanthropic relationships. Absolutely. With this family, in what area did you think was the strongest selling point for getting them to continue their relationship? Was it just explaining, hey, here's what Benedict is up to today? Here's the things that we wanna do to put the Kimson name even more out there than it already has been. Was there a specific element that really stood out to the family and say, hey, let's do it now? I think that it's certainly, you hit the nail on the head was I think that just the timing was right and we are entering into this wonderful new era of transformation. They're excited about what they're seeing taking place currently under the leadership of Dr. Roslunardis and the timing was right for them to come together and say, okay, we have been invested because they have been saving for some years and you may have even seen a quote in the release that we put out that they were deciding we weren't doing presents and birthdays and Christmas exchanges so that we could take what we would normally put towards that and put it into the fund. That's what made it interesting because this wasn't one person who said, you know, I have a brother and a sister so I didn't rally my brother and sister and say, hey, y'all gonna give $3,000, we all gonna give $12,000. Like this is a committee. Yes, and it really is, it really is. This is a committee and if you meet the members of this family, you will say, aha, I can see how they can come. This is the kind of family that you wanna go sit down and have Thanksgiving with because they are just that loving and that thoughtful and just so collaborative around good ideas and you see the reverence that they give to their parents and the reverence that they have for their grandparents and that legacy. So I don't think it was ever hard for them to come to a consensus that they wanted to make this gift. I think it was just a matter of figuring out, okay, how are we gonna fund it? What is the timeline and when? And I think what really motivated them was that we again are in a period of wonderful transformation under the new leadership of Dr. Artis and they wanted to support that. They wanted to support the efforts in the leadership that she has been providing in terms of providing access to students and knowing a little bit more about the needs of the students within South Carolina, the fact that we still have 84% of our students that require some form of financial aid to be able to persist. I think that that was also one of the things that motivated them to say, let's do it now. Let's figure out how we can do this now. To round out, I mean, you guys obviously have a robust development operation and kudos to you for that Benedict, everybody out there listening hasn't heard, they've set records in the last two years for alumni giving. Four, actually, four straight years of, yes, about four years ago, we hit the $1 million mark in alumni giving and so it's been four consecutive years and we don't intend to drop this year. I think we're just a little unsung. Well, and that's what we're trying to work on. At least the Dodgers is trying to work on reversing that unsung part of it. But it's something that you're obviously speaking to individual donors, you're speaking to corporate donors, families involved. Is there a single, obviously again, development is very complex and the biggest part of it is mastering the narrative of your school and making that narrative fit with what a donor wants to do with their life and their money and their legacy. So if there is one thing that you could say that you and Dr. Artis and everyone else at Benedict does well in making that alignment with people's giving goals, what do you think that is? The students, is it the mission? Is it the forward thinking vision? Is it a strategic plan? There's so many things to sell, but what is the one thing that you think is a major selling point that has convinced so many people, let's invest in Benedict? I can say, and the time that I've been here and work with Dr. Artis, it definitely is the students. And I would say certainly the mission of the institution as well plays into that, but the story about our students, the profile of our students, understanding that we still very much so serve a large population of first generation college students who deserve to have access to a quality education in an environment that is going to embrace them, how they come to us and take them where they need to go. We have really invested in looking at what our students need to be able to come and be successful. We understand that they're coming from environments where there are probably skill sets and because their parents may not have attended, again, the college themselves, they don't know how to properly guide them through the college process. And so there are things that we put in place in terms of going back to basics, teaching soft skills to students, and we make sure that that is a part of what we communicate to donors. When they're making this investment, this is what our students are also receiving as a part of that investment. Uniquely, we realize that our students come to us and they have things and needs that they have just to be able to kind of remove barriers from them. We started a business clothing closet for them on our campus and it's connected to our Career Pathways Initiative, which of course was helped funded through UNCF when we're part of this consortium with Class of University and also Voorhees College. But we are removing barriers and I think a lot of donors in our conversation have gotten really excited about that, especially when we talk to some of our corporate donors and those prospects that we're cultivating because they're saying that those are some of the things that they're looking for or the deficiencies that they may be seeing in some of the graduates as they're transitioning from college to the workforce. So when we're talking about that we are intentionally teaching them soft skills, we are intentionally making sure that they are going to be prepared when they go for an interview and that they look the part, they can speak the part and that they have that confidence. People are getting excited about it from our alumni to I said from individuals and friends of the institution to our potential corporate partners and that has seemed to have been a wonderful draw for us.