Learning money's language: they say money talks, and learning this "foreign language" creates successful leaders

University Business, March, 2005 by Karen Gross

There's no question about it. In today's economic climate, educational institutions care about increasing the number and size of the donations they receive. For tuition dependent colleges with small endowments, donations may make the difference between operating at a surplus or at a deficit. For more financially stable institutions, donations are often critical drivers behind new programmatic offerings, new buildings and new endowed chairs. It is not surprising, then, that educational leaders spend a significant portion of their time cultivating existing and prospective donors. What is surprising is how little time is spent helping these leaders learn the language of money--a crucial but unheralded tool in successful fundraising.

Money is complex. At one level, it is obviously dollars and cents. It is the currency that forms the basis of our day-to-clay activities and enables commence to proceed. But, money is more than that. Money is a language that everyone speaks. It is how we communicate our emotions and values--to ourselves and to others.

While some features of money's language are shared, each of us has our own and very personal money language--a dialect--formed and informed by our particular upbringing, gender, age, education, ethnicity, race, class and religion. These factors, taken together with more generalized cultural and societal norms, form a nuanced money language. But, as ubiquitous as money's language is, most of us do not fully understand "money" when we speak it or when others speak to us in it.

COMMUNICATION

For starters, within ourselves, we commonly do not probe, let alone articulate, what money (or the tack thereof) means to us individually. We may not even be aware of how we acquired our views of money and the extent to which we have commodified our emotions and values. When we act with respect to money, we may not recognize why we are behaving as we do. The consequences of failing to understand fully the richness of money's language are exacerbated when two (or more) individuals are communicating about money with each other--say a college president and a prospective donor. It is highly probable that when we "speak money" to others, they may not understand what we are saying and we may not understand what they are saying. The speakers may be using the same words but those words have different meanings. This is unlike what occurs when two people speak different foreign languages; in that context, the lack of understanding is obvious. But, with the language of money, the use of the same words by different speakers masks profound differences in meaning.

For educational leaders seeking donations, it is critical then, that they learn the language of money. They need both to understand their own personal money language as well as the language of the individuals and organizations from whom they are seeking funds. This is because, taken at its most basic level fundraising is about storytelling--telling donors a story about why the institution needs their largess and finding the critical links between the wants and needs of both the institution and the donor. To find those links, a leader must understand the donor's money story (what the donor cares about) and then most significantly, translate the meaning of both the institution and the donor's stories into a common, shared language.

LANGUACULTURE

Historically, foreign language learning was about vocabulary (what to say) and grammar (how to say it). The goals were quite limited--as were the results. Many new foreign language speakers were "book" smart--they could read and speak correctly but they lacked an ability to communicate feelings and emotions in the foreign language. They could not appreciate nuance and cultural perspectives. In non-classroom settings, the language they had ostensibly learned failed them miserably. This is because what they had learned was the foreign language's outside architecture.

Clearly, outside architecture is a necessary beginning to learning the language of money. Fundraisers obviously need to know the essential vocabulary and grammar of giving--the basic financial concepts related to donations (vocabulary) and the alternative ways the donations can be structured (grammar). But, vocabulary and grammar are where foreign language learning starts, not stops. What educational leaders need to learn is the money language's deeper meaning--they need to learn what linguistic anthropologist Michael Agar calls "languaculture."

A key starting point for readers is for them to gain an understanding their own money languaculture. Leaders need to reflect on how they learned about money, what money messages they carry within themselves and then how they signal, often without awareness, their personal money messages to others. Leaders should consider how money was spoken about and handled in their own families, from where their money is derived (earnings, inheritance, marriage) and how they handle their own money, including with their spouse and children. They should reflect on who influences their money choices both positively and negatively, and what mood accompanies various money activities.