Labour's man who'll make the rich pay

Ros Wynne-Jones looks at Henry Drucker, the party's new fundraiser'

MOST graduates will be familiar with the post-university begging letter. Usually tucked in a glossy magazine which recalls in sepia tones those halcyon days of learning, the letter purports to keep you in touch with the Alma Mater and then hits you for a cash return ... "All donations, of course, will be gratefully accepted, see direct debit form below..."

The architect of modern university gift-giving is Henry Drucker, the American-born academic credited with raising pounds 341m for the Campaign for Oxford, and appointed last week by Tony Blair to raise funds for Labour's general election war chest.

For Dr Drucker, a friend of Gordon Brown since the minister's Edinburgh University days and a staunch Labour supporter, his new job is an opportunity to further long-held political ideals. "There is a debate in fundraising about whether consultants need to believe in what they are doing," says Dr Drucker. "I think you should. University fundraising is about realising human potential, a subject about which I am passionate. Now I am excited to be raising money for Labour."

Dr Drucker's CV makes him an ideal choice for Mr Blair. A respected academic, he was senior lecturer in politics at Edinburgh University from 1976 to 1986, and has worked with two of the Labour front bench: collaborating on a book, Multi-Party Britain, with Gordon Brown, and acting as Robin Cook's constituency chairman from 1974-79.

He began fundraising while at Edinburgh, before the university had a development office, then headed the record-breaking Oxford campaign and, until taking up the Labour post, was consultant to Nottingham University, University College London, and the Welsh National Opera.

Former colleagues at Edinburgh remember an ambitious man, anxious to make his mark. Martin Clark, a lecturer in politics at the university, recalls a solid Labour supporter and Scottish devolutionist. "Henry was very much a Labour man," he says. "He was very involved in the devolution debate and strongly opposed to the breakaway Scottish Labour Party. He was good friends with the young Gordon Brown, the only student at Edinburgh ever to be elected Rector."

Dr Drucker has brought to UK fundraising the techniques he saw used while an undergraduate in the United States. He formed a strategy for Oxford using expertise from the New York offices of McKinsey & Co, the management consultants, and looked to Princeton and Duke universities as models.

In taking up the Labour post, Dr Drucker is also looking across the Atlantic for inspiration, appropriately as the formation of Sir James Goldsmith's Referendum Party heralds a new dawn for big bucks electioneering in Britain.

"I have been looking at the methods used in the US and there could be lessons to be learnt although much of their experience won't translate. American candidates have to buy television and radio time, for example, while in this country, fortunately, you don't have Radio 4 saying `Vote Labour!'."

Institutions that have worked with Dr Drucker testify to the success of the mysterious-sounding "seven steps of solicitation", a fundraising blueprint which encourages fundraisers to involve donors fully in the projects they invest in and to remember that a donation is the start, not the end, of a beautiful relationship.

Colleagues at Oxford recall that Dr Drucker was keen to move away from "cold-calling" and mail-shot methods, favouring initiatives such as the creation of a New York office to run academic conferences, social occasions and generally to keep Oxford's many graduates in America in touch with the university. Dr Drucker says the number-one requirement of successful fundraising is the "vision thing" - "the one Mr Bush talked about but didn't have".

Universities, of course, used to be funded by the Government and Dr Drucker's Campaign for Oxford was not warmly welcomed by those who feared a slippery slope towards private sector funding for higher education. Many feared a future where NHS patients and schoolchildren also became gift-giving alumni: "Dear Mrs X, as a recent graduate of our ear, nose and throat department, perhaps you would consider..."

Labour officials have admitted there could be tensions between their new consultant and old Labour. "I wouldn't be surprised if some people were uneasy," admits Dr Drucker, who is employed by the party until after the next general election. "But I hope when we have done our job they will see their fears have not been realised."

The Labour Party's head of fundraising, Mike Cunnington, said his department had raised around pounds 5m last year and aimed for pounds 6m in 1996. "Henry Drucker will be working on major gift fundraising of more than pounds 25,000. Fundraising is now vital because trade unions have been able to contribute less since the late 1980s."

Asked whom he would be targeting, Mr Drucker replied: "Any British citizen with wealth." Like old Labour, new Labour is still out to make the rich pay.