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For
Some, Holiday Break is All Business
Elizabeth
Rich, advancement, works the phone. |
Next week during winter holiday
break, as nearly all in the Smith community will be at home,
visiting family, or away on vacation, a handful of employees
will commute to campus, power up their computers and put in
a day’s work just as they do during other times of the
year.
In the Office of Admission, a
dozen employees will be busy for three days, Dec. 27 through
29, opening mail, entering data and filing materials from
Smith applicants.
And for nine employees in the
Office of Advancement, it’s a week of full workdays
beginning Tuesday, Dec. 26 -- and even Saturday and Sunday,
Dec. 30 and 31, for a few -- scrambling to receive and process
the flood of last-minute donations to the college’s
Alumnae Fund before the new year arrives.
It’s an annual ritual,
this gathering of advancement gift processors during the closing
hours of the year. They typically take in between 300 and
400 gifts each day of the week, double the usual in-take of
100 to 200 gifts a day during the rest of the year, says Elizabeth
Rich, assistant director for gifts and records in advancement,
who is among those who work that week.
“We’re here every
year on the holiday break, taking care of all these gifts
before December 31,” said Rich, who joined the advancement
office six years ago. “We want to process the gifts
and issue receipts to the donors as soon as possible for their
records.”
Heather
Zottoli (left) and Janice McDowell at their advancement
office desks |
Though the few advancement employees
stay very busy during the mid-holiday shifts, Rich says they
keep it light and enjoyable.
“It’s really festive,”
she said. “We have visitors, we’re not getting
any phone calls from other college offices, we’re left
alone to do our work, and we’re fed. One of the really
great things that happens when we’re here is the directors
from advancement come in and bring us lunch.”
To boot, the group typically
receives presents of cookies and ice cream from President
Carol T. Christ, said Rich.
The advancement employees’
work consists of batching gifts by type of payment -- either
in the form of stock, checks, credit cards, or copies of checks
deposited into a college account -- and creating and entering
deposit information. Finally, they notify other departments
and organizations, such as Friends of Libraries or Friends
of the Botanic Garden, so they can send thank-you notes to
the donors.
Occasionally, they might get
a challenging request, Rich says, such as from a potential
donor who wants to transfer money from a mutual fund, for
example. “And sometimes people come out of the woodwork,
just looking for their long-lost friend who went to Smith
the same time they did,” she said.
It’s all part of the between-holiday
schedule for the advancement group, as they rally together
to process all those year-end donations.
“We enjoy this time,”
says Rich. “It’s really a team time, when we’re
really pulling together to get through it.”
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