>> Batch 8061: My name is Kevin Kennedy.
I am the associate director of development for George Washington University GSEHD grad school
of education in human development.
It entails a lot, at the end of the day you know you receive that phone from someone
from the school you think is about asking for money?
That's kind of my job.
I really is about building the relationship and if it makes sense for you donate, let's do it;
if it doesn't make sense but you can give your time, that's equally as important.
We're actually embarked upon our, one of main campaigns right now called Making History
and it's a billion dollar campaign for the university and for our school
in particular it's a 15 million dollar campaign.
Luckily, we're about 6.7 million into it at this point which is great.
Raising to 40%, relatively easy that last 60/50/30%, very hard to do and so we're
in that mode of campaigning at this point, so at the end of the day scholarship,
capital improvements you can see the cranes around the building
so that our students can have access and just a great university in order
to learn in an environment to learn in.
I'm not going to paint a rosy picture, I have may days when I've picked up the phone
and someone said exactly, I know why you're calling, don't call me again; you'll have those,
but because particularly for our school which is a graduate school
which is a different experience than undergrad,
the affinity to the school is different than an undergraduate degree.
They're actually very happy to be engaged because they're at the point in their lives
where they want to give back; I'm actually very passionate about the subject
of education, so it's hits home for me.
It's very personal for me, so therefore, if I don't have success with person A,
I still see potential with person B. At the end of the day, I'm a people person.
I love engaging and meeting new people, I'm very social and so it lent this position,
it actually lent itself to something I naturally do I think well
and that I'm actually passionate about, and so as my passions change over the years,
engaging people has never changed whether it's through on a microphone
or it's actually from a development capacity.