David Gibson is communications director for the Dartmouth College development office in Hanover, N.H. Previously, he served as managing editor for Yankee Magazine in Dublin, N.H. He has also been editor and publisher of Cornell Alumni Magazine in Ithaca, N.Y., and served as editor for Northeastern University Magazine in Boston. Gibson won a CASE Crystal Apple Award for Teaching Excellence in 2005 and will be on the faculty at this year's Summer Institute in Communications and Marketing. He can be reached at 603-646-9154 or david.j.gibson@dartmouth.edu.

You moved from a successful career as a university magazine editor to directing the communications effort for a $1.3 billion fundraising campaign at Dartmouth. How do the thought processes differ in each role?
The differences were stark early on. At a magazine, you're an English major excited by good writing, big pictures, beautiful type. You sit on desks, talk too loudly and use too many metaphors. The glass is always half empty.

In fundraising, you're an MBA motivated by 6 percent response rates, charts and graphs, returns on investment. You hold meetings in conference rooms and use too many acronyms. The glass is always half full.

But something of a synthesis happened for me after five years in development, and I started to see similarities more than differences. Storytelling, for instance, is crucial to both endeavors-in raising awareness and investment-you just write to a different word count.

And despite the legendary tensions between alumni magazine editors and fundraisers, both tell the institution's story, seek answers to the tough questions, are driven by deadlines and accountable to an audience.

Fundraisers just visit nicer restaurants.

Experience in each realm has, I hope, made me better at both.

In your current job, you changed the tone of the institution's fundraising pieces from promotional and lofty to informative and real. How did you accomplish that?

Changing the tone was the easiest part of an otherwise challenging first year. I simply pitched that we have a smart, savvy, skeptical audience-because that's what Dartmouth trains them to be-so let's not waste their time with clichés.
Let's persuade them to invest in the institution by being explicit about our needs, candid about the impact they can have on the enterprise and inspiring about why it all matters.

It's pretty basic stuff, and there are excellent examples of this at schools across the country. I hired writers who were magazine or newspaper journalists in past careers because they know that information trumps hype if your intent is to influence or convince.

They practice the golden rule-show, don't tell-so they're more apt to find the compelling or delightful detail that might make a reader say, "I want to be part of this place," rather than telling the reader they should be a part of it.

So we try to base our marketing work on reporting rather than just writing.

I also pretend that each piece we mail or post to the Web will instead be communicated in person. Would we be comfortable delivering those same words face-to-face in a Wall Street office or to a reunion gathering with plenty of time for Q&A? If not, it's thin and we need a rewrite.

Overall, this practice seems to be working and feedback has been good. Our fundraising colleagues, in particular, respect this approach. Their jobs put them in the hot seat and they understand personally what donors expect.

As editor and publisher at Cornell, you successfully overhauled the magazine's look and content, improved the financial picture and energized the staff. How does one go about leading that kind of change?
With great colleagues, a solid magazine already in place, an encouraging boss and, in Cornell's case, an impressive alumni board of directors.

When I interviewed for the job, the chairman told me (kindly!) that I'd have all the rope I needed to hang myself, and that's what every editor wants to hear. It reminded me of a line I've always admired from a Norman Podhoretz memoir: He said that as the young editor of Commentary, he had as much freedom as he was willing to risk exercising.

So we took chances, like the 5,000-word report on why the university posted budget deficits after completing the country's then biggest billion-dollar-plus campaign. We got hammered by the administration but received love letters from third-generation Cornellians who thanked us for explaining higher education finance. (The administration came around.)

When you feel you're doing something important to advance the interests of an institution, especially under pressure, that can bring a staff together. We had our bumps early on. I think I pushed for big change too fast, and looking back, I should have paid more attention to people rather than product during the first six months.

But we became tight. I admire every one of those colleagues and will always be grateful to them for a good run.

How has CASE membership influenced your career?
CASE has given me opportunities to teach, and I appreciate that. I probably should have been tossed after my first mediocre outings, but my friends at headquarters are forgiving. The Summer Institutes in Communications and Marketing, in particular, showed me just how fulfilling teaching can be. This summer will mark my 13th year on the faculty, and I'm still struck by the insights, the new ways of looking at worn issues, that colleagues bring to these gatherings. Whether you're in the front of the room or in back, you leave smarter than when you came. That's important for the field as a whole, and CASE makes that happen.

This article is from the January 2009 issue of BriefCASE.
Please share your questions and comments with Pam Russell via e-mail at russell@case.org or by telephone at +1-202-478-5680.