When Cambridge University headhunters went on a global search, looking for a top fundraiser for a new children's hospital, they noticed one Kiwi's profile on LinkedIn. After 15 video interviews, Aucklander Mary Jane Boland got the job. She talks to Jane Phare about the fine art of raising big money.
Mary Jane Boland - "MJ" to her friends and colleagues – put off the Herald's interview until the day before she flew out to London. She didn't really understand what all the fuss was about or why anyone would want to interview her.
But her achievement is summed up when asked how much she thinks she raised in the five years she worked as a fundraiser for the University of Auckland.
"Over $100 million," she answers, matter-of-factly. And that's Boland's personal tally. She's been involved in raising many millions more in team projects. She was campaign director for the last 20 months of the university's five-year For All Our Futures campaign, which aimed to raise $300m for medical research and projects across other faculties. When the tally was announced in November 2019, the amount stood at $380m.
Back then, Boland was associate director, development, at the University of Auckland, working with "very significant donors" and academics to support medical research and other projects across various faculties. They were philanthropists who, for the right projects or research, would donate six-, seven- and in some cases, eight-figure amounts.
This week she took up her new role as director of development, Cambridge University Health Partners, co-ordinating medical fundraising at Cambridge University. Her first target will be to raise money for a new multimillion-dollar, state-of-the art children's hospital in Cambridge. She's likely to be working with global philanthropists who will donate eight- and nine-figure amounts but it's the project itself that attracted Boland.
"It's one of the big appeals of the role," Boland says. "It will be a world first in the sense that it aims to bring mental and physical healthcare together for children."
Boland's former boss, director of alumni relations and development Mark Bentley, who hired her in 2016, was struck by her ability to establish enduring relationships with donors, matching them with Auckland University academics who needed to make progress on life-changing research.
"MJ clearly didn't want to be a custodian of the status quo. She always wanted to make big, positive change by taking donors on a journey where they could achieve great things through the university."
She did that by spending large amounts of time to understand what the donors wanted to achieve, he says, and encouraging them to be more ambitious about that potential. At the same time, Boland had a deep and genuine knowledge in the science that sat on the other side.
"So she wouldn't be promising something that couldn't be delivered."
Boland's 17 years of experience as a journalist - with the Herald, Evening Post, the Dominion, Sunday Star-Times and the Listener - helped her understand both the stories behind donors' motivations and the projects academics felt would make a difference. She cut her teeth in high-level fundraising when she joined The Hearing House in 2009 and was tasked with raising more than $10m for a new building in Auckland and to pay for therapy for children with cochlear implants.
Now she'll be working with philanthropists both in the UK and globally, people with the ability to donate some very large amounts.
"People have no idea how generous some people are. The impact of what these philanthropists can do is literally changing the world."
Boland will put her skills to good use with Cambridge University Health Partners, which works closely with local National Health Service (NHS) foundations on projects including a new cancer research institute, a brain and mind health institute, and a heart and lung institute. In addition, Health Partners fundraises for the All the Best programme, which offers undergraduate and post-graduate scholarships to top students from diverse and disadvantaged backgrounds throughout the world.
Back in January, Boland was approached through LinkedIn by Cambridge University's talent and recruitment adviser, telling her about the position. The hiring process wasn't quick. After a series of casual conversations, Boland had three formal Zoom interviews in April. Shortlisted down to three candidates, she then faced another 12 video interviews with individuals, academics, panels of people and philanthropic leaders.
But she won't be forgetting her family of Kiwi philanthropists in a hurry. Without a second thought, she can rattle off their names - and precise spellings - the dates and amounts of the donation and, more importantly, what the donations achieved.
She was closely involved with a two-year project that resulted in the Hugh Green Foundation, led by Hugh Green's widow Moira, donating $16.5m to Auckland University's Centre for Brain Research in 2019, an endowment that boosted the chances of success in combating neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, motor neurone disease and brain tumours.
Included in her portfolio are donations around the $5m mark – funds for chairs in addiction research from the Hugh Green Foundation, brain research from the David Levene Foundation, cancer research from the late Antony Morris and his wife Margaret, who co-founded the Eye Institute, and the Joyce Cook chair in ageing well, funded by Cliff Cook.
The Hugh Green Foundation also pledged $7.1m to the Malaghan Institute for Medical Research. Shortly before Boland left for the UK, a New Zealander who wants to remain anonymous contributed $11m for a precision cancer medicine programme, a proposal that took two years to complete. The same donor has previously funded a chair for leukemia and lymphoma.
Boland says the motivation for high-level donors is about making a difference.
"It's usually deeply personal. For many donors, it's around a loved one who has cancer or who has a neurodegenerative disease. It may not make a difference to the loved one but the idea that maybe they could make a difference to other people is what motivates them."
Others see a need and want to address it.
"For some of our donors who support environmental causes, for example, they see the challenge of climate change and pollution and various other challenges that we live with on the planet. The donors that give at this very generous level realise it's a long game."
Although more than $200m of the funds from the All Our Futures campaign went to the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, the remainder of the $380m was spread across other university faculties. Those funds, says Boland, helped support some "extraordinary, life-changing work" including a project aimed at low-decile schools to help students achieve better university entrance rates.
Funds also went to the Liggins Institute which specialises in maternal and infant health, the Auckland Bioengineering Institute, the Business School, scholarships and projects such as reducing whale strikes by vessels in the Hauraki Gulf.
"That research lead to a voluntary reduction by shipping companies to reduce the speeds in the Hauraki Gulf. And since 2014, there have been no whales struck in the Hauraki Gulf, as a result of that research."
Boland knows all the stories, and the results. She points to the Auckland Cancer Trials Centre, funded by donors, which treats patients with advanced or aggressive cancer whose only alternative is palliative care.
"To actually work on the fundraising proposal, talk to the donors, talk to the academics, and work with the hospital to see this be realised was amazing. The cherry on the top is to hear anecdotally from clinicians about the impact of that unit on cancer patients' lives."
One story that sticks in Boland's mind is about a patient treated at the centre who was told he had weeks, possibly months, to live. After treatment, he sent photos of himself and his wife travelling around the South Island in their motor home because he was so well.
"So there are those spine-tingling moments when you really realise that what you're doing makes a difference. And it's not me making the difference, it's the donors and the academics. I'm just a conduit."
Small amounts make a difference
Although Boland is used to working with donors with hefty chequebooks, she says every small amount helps to make a difference. She lost her father to cancer seven years ago and knows the impact cancer research can have.
"I think it's really important to realise that every gift is a treasure."
Boland and her husband Guy Mills went through IVF treatment for the conception of their two eldest children, twins David and Elizabeth, now 17. As a result, they've been regular donors to "extraordinary" work done by the Liggins Institute.
"So $20 a month may not seem massive, particularly compared to these other gifts, but it's equally as important because it's making a difference."
Boland says one of the keys to fundraising is about building a trusting relationship, ensuring the university can deliver and keeping the donor informed about progress.
"Fundraising is all about relationships and it's all about sharing stories. It's very much about bringing together those two groups and working on making sure that the donors see the impact. "
Bentley says Boland was "truly exceptional" at building relationships that endured.
"She never saw any of these things as in any way transactional. It was always the start of a journey that would achieve great things rather than a one-off gift. People have given again and again because they saw the projects come to fruition."
Her move to Cambridge University will be the University of Auckland's loss, he says.
"It's also a bit of a back-handed compliment. It's not often that one of the world's top universities comes scouting in our backyard. Part of that is built on the fact we've got a pretty good university here."
Haere rā Aotearoa, hello Brittania
Not only were Boland's 15 job interviews conducted on Zoom, thanks to Covid-19, but so was her farewell to her colleagues at Auckland University. With backdrops of the Union Jack behind them, they came online to wish her well. Boland told them they were helping to make a difference to the world.
Mills, the twins and their younger sister Katherine, 15, and Maggie the labrador, will move to the UK later in the year after the school term finishes. Mills is a university career adviser and a trained librarian so there's a possibility he and Boland might work on the same campus.
"Cambridge has 100 libraries," she laughs, "so I hope there'll be an opening."
When Boland started her career in the world of high-level fundraising, she worked with a relatively small group of families with children suffering from hearing loss. Her next step was with the University of Auckland, fundraising for projects that had a national impact.
"I think the Cambridge role will have a global impact because of the impact on healthcare. That's quite a nice stepping stone."