Abstract
Purpose. The purpose of this study was to identify the required roles and responsibilities of chief development officers (CDOs) as seen by university presidents, CDOs, and other fundraising experts in the year 2015 and beyond. Methodology. The Delphi technique was used to obtain consensus from a panel of experts on the roles and responsibilities of CDOs. The Delphi technique is a well-known descriptive research design that allows the participating expert panel to remain anonymous in a collaborative research process. The original expert panel consisted of 25 experts in higher education. Each expert was either a university president, CDO, or a fundraising consultant. For the purpose of identifying significant difference, the experts were split into two groups: presidents and CDOs/consultants. The final panel consisted of 24 experts—12 presidents and 12 CDOs/consultants. Findings. Consensus was achieved on all eight future roles. As for the future responsibilities, the expert panel obtained consensus on 11 of the 12 themes. The responsibility "mentor president" was the only theme on which the panel was unable to achieve consensus. The expert panel felt "mentor president" was a theme to consider when asked to identify three future roles and three future responsibilities in the first round. Conclusions. The study determined the future roles and responsibilities of the CDO, and the findings will benefit higher education fundraising. In essence, the experts have identified core themes, which make up the future roles and responsibilities, to maintain the focus and streamline the future fundraising process for the institution. The identified roles and responsibilities will allow CDOs to focus on the most important areas of their fundraising initiatives and delegate the remaining duties to their team/staff. The findings conclude that both presidents and CDOs agree that the future roles and responsibilities are important and play a part in the success of future fundraising. Only 1 of the 20 original themes, "mentor president," did not achieve consensus among the expert panel and ultimately was left off the list. The success of the study speaks volumes to the importance of identifying the future roles and responsibilities from the perspective of the industry experts.