This best practice is brought to you by Development’s ND Voice Committee and their initiative to enhance communication by sharing best practices for employee recognition and appreciation.  Special thanks to Bob Quakenbush and Rudy Reyes for this month’s posting.

Looking for a way to recognize good work or express your gratitude to a colleague while enriching our department’s collective knowledge about Our Lady’s University at the same time? Consider a book about Notre Dame as a token of your appreciation.

So many books have been written about Notre Dame through the years that you can be certain to find one that is meaningful, useful, or will be treasured as a keepsake or as an addition to — or the foundation of — a personal collection of books about Our Lady’s University.

For those who might enjoy perusing old photos and illustrations of the early days of Notre Dame, there is Thomas J. Schlereth’s fascinating The University of Notre Dame: A Portrait of Its History and Campus, first published in the 1970s. For a book to uplift the spirit, the Notre Dame Book of Prayer or The Chapels of Notre Dame might be fine selections.  For the Civil War buff, options include Father William Corby’s Memoirs of Chaplain Life: 3 Years in the Irish Brigade with the Army of the Potomac, which has been described as one of the best of the numerous published diaries of Civil War participants, or Notre Dame and the Civil War by James Schmidt. For the football fan, there are many new or used books to choose from; one of the most recent additions is Coach for a Nation, a new biography of Knute Rockne by Jim LeFebvre.

Sometimes, you can unexpectedly find a great story about a Notre Dame alumnus in a book about another subject. Imagine reading James Bradley’s highly-regarded Flags of Our Fathers for the first time and discovering that a young Marine, Corporal Robert Leader, who was instrumental in the first flag raising at the top of Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima (the one that took place before the most iconic photo of World War II was taken) later became a popular professor who taught Art Traditions at Notre Dame.

This year, as the University celebrates the bicentennial of the birth of Rev. Edward Sorin, C.S.C., the founder of Notre Dame, consider the biography, Edward Sorin by Marvin R. O’Connell, or The Chronicles of Notre Dame Du Lac, attributed to the founder himself.

Many books about Notre Dame can be found at the campus bookstore, and many more can be found online at BetterWorldBooks.com, Ebay.com or Amazon.com.

Please join me in welcoming Michael Vangel ’14 to the marketing and communications team. Michael will be interning in our department until late October — primarily as a writer.

Michael, who hails from St. Louis, MO — graduated this past month from Notre Dame with a BA in American Studies and Italian. He’s a former Bass Captain in the Band of the Fighting Irish and Executive Editor of the Dome Yearbook. He also hosted a weekly radio show on WVFI, wrote for the Scholastic and played in a rock band. Busy guy!

During his time at Notre Dame Michael also spent a semester abroad at the University of Bologna (Italy) and he spent a summer at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History as a Jazz research intern. So if you have a question about JAZZ — he’s your guy!

Michael’s first day is today — June 16th!
—

Jim Small
Senior Director, Marketing & Communications
Development

The technology in the Family Room is currently down and will be for approximately 2 weeks. One of the main components had to be shipped to the manufacturer for repair.  We will post a notification once it is operational again and we apologize for the inconvenience.

Starting this month the ND Voice Committee for Development will be posting best practices for employee recognition and appreciation as part of their efforts on improving communication. Every month a new idea will be featured that is easy to implement and has little or no cost. Many thanks to the committee for their time and effort on this project! Stay tuned for the first posting.

Congratulations and farewell to Lori Willard on her new position, Software Quality Assurance Engineer, with iModules.

Lori’s good nature and encyclopedic knowledge of our data, systems, and processes made her an invaluable resource for our staff and our constituents, and she will be sorely missed. Nevertheless, this is a great opportunity for Lori, and we are very happy for her.

We view ourselves as partners as much as customers with iModules, working to make their product (and, thus, myNotreDame) better. In that light, Lori is still a member of the team. In a very concrete way, the University will continue to benefit from Lori’s knowledge and expertise. We look forward to seeing her at iModules’ annual user conference!

Mark Welch

Please join me in welcoming Debbie Meck-Loughran as a new Assistant Director of Major Gifts for the Los Angeles and Orange County area.  Debbie brings to Notre Dame several years of fundraising and donor relations experience.  She served as the Development Coordinator at Rosary High School in Fullerton, California. Leading up to her position at Rosary High School, Debbie spent eight years in education in the Diocese of Orange and independent private schools with a focus on early childhood development. She was the President of the Notre Dame Club of Orange Country from 2000 – 2002. She continues to be active in several charities and organizations, including Mustard Seed International and National Charity League.

Debbie graduated with a Bachelor of the Arts in Government from the University of Notre Dame in 1991. A native and current resident, Debbie resides in Orange County, California with her husband and four children. Her husband Terry Loughran (Notre Dame Class of ’91, Alumni Hall) is Director-Senior Portfolio Manager with City National Bank in Beverly Hills. Three of their children, Kit (’16), Ryan (’17) and Kelly (’18) currently attend the University of Notre Dame. Their son Andy is in the fifth grade.

Stu Fortener, Senior Regional Director – West Region

Dear Colleagues,

I am delighted to welcome Ron Linczer to the Notre Dame Development family. Ron joins the East Region as a Regional Director, based in South Bend and serving New England.

Ron brings over 20 years of sales and sales management experience to this role. Most recently, he served as Business Development Manager for Gemstar Manufacturing. Ron holds an MBA in Marketing/International Business from Notre Dame (1988), and a BS in Economics from Ball State University (1984).

Ron’s wife, Anne Ranaghan Linczer, is a 1989 graduate of Notre Dame. Ron and Anne have ten children, including 2014 graduate Edward. Daughter Grace will be a junior at Notre Dame this fall, and son John will join her on campus as member of the incoming freshman class. William (16), Claudia (14) and Owen (12), attend Trinity School at Greenlawn. The next two, Veronica (10) and Genevieve (8) both attend St. Joseph Grade School. The latest additions to the family, Damien and Gabriel, are both about 2-1/2 years old and “just keep us running”, according to Ron.

Please join me in welcoming Ron to Notre Dame Development!

In Notre Dame,

Anne Griffith

Anne M. Griffith
Senior Director of Development – East Region

Dear colleagues:

I am happy to share several staffing announcements and promotions for the Special Events & Stewardship team (please note that our unit is no longer to be referred to as Donor Engagement). First of all, we want to thank Libby Schleiffarth and Pat James for their dedication and commitment to Notre Dame’s mission; both are retiring this summer. I am inspired to share the following staff changes:

• Heather Moriconi has been promoted to Director of Special Events & Stewardship with a focus on the stewardship programs in support of the academy, and the ownership of the acknowledgment processes. She will partner with the East team of Regional Development and Principal Gifts.
• Sara Kassen has been promoted to Director of Special Events & Stewardship with a focus on the stewardship programs for financial aid as well as all public and personal recognition of donors, including new and refurbished buildings. She will support the West team of Regional Development and Principal Gifts.
• Mary Fisher, who was promoted earlier this spring to Director of Special Events & Stewardship responsible for all impact reporting, will be moving to Chicago in October and therefore will be supporting the Midwest team of Regional Development and Principal Gifts.
• Kris Machalleck has been promoted to Lead Coordinator for Special Events & Stewardship and will be focused on the programs for financial aid. She will partner closely with Gift Planning on many activities, including Donor Advised Funds, principal stewardship and the Badin Guild Weekend.
• Kathy Lentych has been hired as Coordinator for Special Events & Stewardship supporting the stewardship programs for financial aid, with an emphasis on fellowships. She will be partnering with the West Region of Development.
• Lauren Fox has been promoted to Associate Director of Special Events. Lauren will continue to lead the campaign events, among other event responsibilities.

We currently have two openings, an assistant director of special events and stewardship (with a focus on the endowed professorship and library programs) and a stewardship writer/editor. Thank you for your support during these transitions. As always, please let me know if you have any questions.

Warm Regards,

Katherine Lane

In order to properly account for pledges and gifts through June 30, 2014, Advance will be held open for FY14 through the end of business, Thursday, July 3^rd.  Following are several items to consider:

Gifts/Pledges

• Gifts in the form of cash received by the University by June 30, 2014 (in hand or post marked) should be delivered to Donor Services by noon, July 3, 2014.

• Gifts in the form of cash wired to the University should be in the University’s bank account by Monday, June 30, 2014.

• Gifts in the form of securities should be to the University’s broker by Monday, June 30, 2014 to be considered a FY14 gift.

o   Note:  Gifts intended to be invested in the endowment need to be to the University’s broker by Wednesday, June 25, 2014.  If the gift is received after this date, gift credit will be given in FY14 but the gift will post to the endowment in FY15.

• Gifts sent to the lockbox with postmarks through June 30, 2014 will be processed by the end of day, July 3, 2014.

• Gifts received on July 1st for FY15 will be processed on July 7, 2014.

• FY14 pledges with the appropriate supporting documentation should be to Donor Services by noon, July 3, 2014 for FY14 processing.

Reporting

• Advance will post June 30, 2014 gifts the evenings of July 1 through July 3, 2014.  Reports via Advance and Business Objects through June 30 will be available beginning July 4, 2014.

• Note – the Daily Transaction Report dated July 1 through July 4, 2014 will represent June 30, 2014 activity.

Please let us know if you have any questions.  Happy Fiscal Year End!

Stacy L. Koebel-Harder, CPA, CGMA

Director, Development, Donor Services