Victor Dugga is a playwright, actor and associate professor of theater arts at the University of Jos, Nigeria. And since 2004, he has served as the university's first executive director of advancement. Known as UNIJOS, the university was established in 1975 and enrolls about 15,000 students. It joined CASE in 2004, becoming the first institutional member from Nigeria.

Dugga spoke in August at CASE's third comprehensive advancement workshop in Africa. Organized with financial support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and with sessions across the advancement disciplines tailored to Africa, the workshop drew attendees from Tanzania, Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, the U.K., Canada and the United States.

Dugga earned bachelor's and master's degrees at UNIJOS as well as a master's degree from the University of Essex, U.K., and a doctorate in English literature at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. He can be reached at samsonv@unijos.edu.ng.

Describe your progress in the burgeoning field of advancement in Africa.
The office I head was newly created in 2004, and I had to recruit every person. It's a pretty small office with eight on staff at the moment, but by Nigerian standards, it's quite good. We began earlier this year with an endowment fund that netted $1.3 million. Donors have participated very actively. Half of what we've raised so far comes from businesses and the rest from alumni, individuals and friends of the university.

Right now we are planning a capital campaign that will roll out in 2008. The campaign will pay for faculty buildings, equipment, some student hostels and a sports complex.

We have many goals. This is why we have engaged with CASE to take part in the first three annual advancement workshops in Africa. I helped facilitate the first one in 2005 as lead volunteer. It involved assisting with the logistics and arrangements to make the workshop happen as well as inviting the schools that participated and selling the concept of volunteerism. I think over three years, it has grown considerably, and it keeps getting better.

Another goal is seeing that every university in Nigeria has a professionally run advancement operation. That would make my work easier because then I wouldn't have to start from the beginning every time I meet new faculty, explaining what advancement is and why it's important. More importantly, people would become accustomed to maintaining a relationship with their university and to supporting higher education financially.

Third, I'd like to see legislation changed to give some tax relief to donors. That is not currently available in Nigeria. Maybe I'm growing a little impatient, but that is the direction I'd love to see it grow.

What are some of the factors that define the advancement climate in Nigeria?
Until now, fundraising was always ad hoc within Nigeria and at the University of Jos. Now we are strategically setting institutional priorities.

To date, we have done cultivation, some fundraising and a lot of communication work, reaching out and asking questions to help bring about awareness of fundraising and of the ideas behind fundraising.

Nigeria is an oil producing country, so people naturally expect that education should be well-funded-that education should be a priority. But it's not. Somehow education has not been put at the center of community development.

The other aspect is cultural. People are generous-they give to community causes, they give to religious causes, but not to education. With fundraising, we're not just asking for money-we are breaking through the cultural barrier of attitudes about what government should provide. Despite our famous African hospitality, when it comes to education, people have to see why they should be involved. Some are wondering if the university really means business. Time will, I suppose, also answer that question.

The most challenging thing in African advancement is that the concept is quite new and people need to know how it operates to work in it effectively. The tendency among those who don't know the principals behind it is to just end up asking for money. What is most important is realizing that it's a continuous investment in the joint future of our society-it's not just business.

Other factors are geopolitical. Among African nations, Nigeria has the largest number of universities, 89 in total, both public and private. Because of the problems of Africa, you cannot easily relate across borders like you do in Europe and North America. One of the biggest challenges lies in pulling together the resources that would be required.

How do you go about transforming attitudes about engagement?
It's a slow process to change individual perspectives through engagement-the more the individual gets to know what the institution is doing and how this can impact life, the less resistant that individual is to the idea of giving.

In our culture, it's customary to make a lot of noise about gifts that are received-that is expected. For our universities, that means they must engage and reengage over time.

I went to visit somebody who remains one of the single highest donors to the university-he gave to us about seven years ago, but in all this time, no one had ever gone to thank him personally. We went to see him and said thank you for the gift you gave us. He was pleased.

It takes continuous engagement to change a potential donor's perception of the university. Right now, I have a prospect who has lived in Africa for a long time and is one of the top business people in town. I've been working with him for two years. So far, he has just given a small amount, but I understand he is now thinking of the university in his will. This is symbolic of just how slow the process is.

Despite the slow change in attitudes toward giving, we have corporate organizations now that are getting engaged, like the banks and the telecom companies.

We are also setting out to teach our students to play a role in advancement. Last year in the university's first pre-alumni program called "Leave a Legacy," we trained students to raise funds for a project they conceived. The idea was to raise money to build a bus shelter in front of the school. The students worked together with the advancement office, which gave them introductions to business leaders. The objective is to engage students while they are still here so they become alumni who know and understand the concept of giving back and of the concept of asking.

How do you manage to continue your work in the theater and as a professor while also working full time in advancement?
I still do some work in theater because I choose to. It allows me to engage with more members of the community but presents its own challenges. I do some creative writing, and I have written just one play since taking this job in 2004.

I spend 95 percent of my time in advancement and 35 percent in theater. I have to in order to come up with 130 percent-which is what it requires. I also teach one or two theater arts courses a year.

This article is from the October 2007 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.