How Des Moines University’s president approached the nonprofit’s board about building a new campus

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As president and CEO of Des Moines University, Angela Franklin has led the medical school through one of the most significant changes in its history: Building a new campus west of its current location near downtown Des Moines. 

On the Nonprofit Storytellers Podcast, Franklin talks about the Purple and Proud Campaign, what presenting such a large vision to the board was like, and how she handled naysayers. On the podcast, you’ll find a full interview that includes the following:

• How she approached her first year as president

• Walking through a mission, vision, and value process for DMU

• How the idea to build a new campus evolved from a casual conversation

• Her approach to public criticism when the university announced their plans

• How she lead the board and campus through the process

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Below is an edited and condensed version of the interview. Listen to the entire interview online on the Nonprofit Storytellers Podcast on  iTunes, Spotify and Google. 

The Purple and Proud capital campaign is the first for Des Moines University. How did this get started? 

As most universities evolve, finding new revenue streams is an essential role for any leader, particularly in higher education. 

Coming to Des Moines University in 2011 as its 15th president, my main objective in those first few years was to focus on the mission, vision, and core values of the institution.  

It typically doesn’t happen in the first year, especially if you’re in an institution that’s historically not done a lot of fundraising and development. I had to build the infrastructure and the team and create a vision for the future. It wasn’t until 2018 that we went public with the campaign. There was a quiet phase before that, establishing those core values, creating a mission and a vision, and setting priorities for fundraising. 

Why was it important to start with that mission, vision, and values? 

Any new leader coming into any organization has an opportunity. Many times in the interview, you’re asked: “What is your vision for the organization?”

One thing that was really important for me as a new president at DMU was to get a great sense of the organization and its history. To see where we are and where we can go. And the vision became more of a collective vision because it’s hard for an outsider to come into an organization and decide where you’re going if you don’t yet know the place.

It was really important for me to spend a lot of time understanding the institution, its people, and its challenges. We did a SWOT analysis, looking at strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. That began the process of launching a strategic plan. In any organizational leadership role, you want to first know the organization, assess and evaluate it, and then figure out how to bring people along.

I had a lot of ideas of where I would love to see this place go. But when I arrived, it was more important to make sure I understood the culture and I understood the people so that we could advance together.

How did you go about getting that collective vision, getting input, and then what emerged from those findings?

Spending a lot of time making sure people knew they were important and that they mattered to the organization. In my first year, I spent quite a bit of time talking and listening to various constituents on campus, from our students to our faculty and staff, to our alumni base, and our board members. 

I spent quite a bit of time listening to hear their perspective, what was great about their alma mater and the opportunities for change. 

That allowed me to build those relationships, which were critical because it’s hard to advance an organization to say: “Come with me, come join me on this journey,” if they don’t trust that you’re taking them in the right direction.

It’s important to start with building relationships. In order to build relationships, I had to understand the people and the culture. Because once people get on board and they feel they get to add value, then it’s easier to say: “Here are some ideas of where we can go and get everybody on board with that.”

A mission statement was created: We exist to improve lives in our global community by educating diverse groups of highly competent and compassionate health professionals. It’s a phrase that we have on our website. People have it on their ID badges. It’s our rallying cry as the mission of the institution.

Was there anything that surprised you about the mission and vision process?

It was really the first time people felt they got to participate as much as they did. Along the way, we realized that we had opportunities for students to be engaged in a student governance group. We had a faculty leadership group, but the staff never felt they had their own governing body. So we created a staff organization. I think that resonated with the campus community. It’s not about just the students and the faculty but the staff also matter.

We ended that process with people feeling heard, appreciated, and respected for their roles. And I think the surprise for me was that it had never been communicated that way. It was the first step to building a relationship and for people to gain a great understanding and appreciation for me and have some sense of understanding and trust, and trust comes with time.

Let’s talk about the capital campaign. The university has three priorities: Student support, faculty support, as well as a new campus, which is a really exciting development for our community.

Construction of the campus is underway. You’re moving from the urban center of Des Moines to 88 acres in West Des Moines. When did you become aware of the need for a new campus?

To be honest with you, when I arrived in 2011, I never imagined we would be at a point where we could even imagine relocating the campus. Very few leaders ever think of picking up and moving completely.

The idea for the move was a circumstance that was created because of growing pains. We were at a point here on 22 acres of land at 3200 Grand in downtown Des Moines, and we were in a position of struggling with how to add new degree programs. How do we continue to add more students? How do we grow the enterprise?

Most university presidents are judged on how many students you have, how many new programs you’ve created, how are you growing the enterprise. Because a lot of us are tuition-dependent. As you grow, if you don’t want to continue to raise tuition, you may add new degree programs.

It would have been around 2016, 2017, as we were launching the quiet phase of the campaign and getting ready to go public, we started realizing a priority for the future might be new degree programs.

The problem was if we could accommodate any new degree program at this particular campus site because of our facilities. We’re landlocked where we are. There’s very little room to grow here. So that became a real challenge for us.

The variable that determined the need to do something different was the fact that all of a sudden, we had a parking problem. If we currently have parking issues and we don’t have room to grow here, how are we going to ever add a new degree program?

It was a simple challenge of more need for more parking. And that surprised some of our alumni, for instance, because they all lived near the campus (when they attended), in the apartments across the street, and around us. They could walk to campus. 

But as time has gone on, students started finding wonderful new locations to live all around the greater Des Moines area. They were moving to the new developments out in West Des Moines. They were moving downtown. They were no longer staying right around the campus.

We realized we have the same number of students, but now we have parking problems. So that became an interesting challenge for us.

I remember those conversations with my board leadership saying, “Well, we’ll do the campaign. We’ll try to do a great job fundraising and hit our $25 million campaign goal,” which will support students and faculty. It wasn’t about the new campus at the time.

Within about a six-month period of launching that campaign and going public, we raised more money than anyone would have imagined.

In my conversations with the board about what we do now, my answer was, we can’t do much more because we’re landlocked. And it was an interesting conversation I had with my chair.

The next question he asked was, “Well, what do we do about that?” And to be honest with you, I was almost joking when I said, “We need to be in a bigger space. We need more land to grow. If only we had more land, that would make all the world of difference for this university. Then we’d have room to grow.” 

The thing that came out of his mouth next was, “Well, maybe we can support that idea.” 

And I said, “You mean, relocate the campus?” 

He said, “Let’s talk to everybody else.”

It was a casual conversation with me expressing a challenge to my board leadership that led to me testing this idea with other leaders on the board. And to my surprise, I thought they would have said, no way. But they all said this is important to our future. We want you to stay and grow the enterprise.

Were there any board members who played devil’s advocate? 

There will always be individuals that may not necessarily be on board with an idea, but I think it’s my job since they hired me to do the job. Some presidents or leaders of organizations have really small boards. I came to a board that had 28 members when I first arrived. There are about 22 now. Their bylaws allow for up to 30.

They’re not always in sync. They’re not always agreeing with an idea. And I spent quite a bit of time trying to bring people along with me. So if there is a challenging situation, I test the idea with a small group, just like relocating the campus. 

I started asking, “What do you think?” And that person said yes. Then the next person said yes. And I got a core group of individuals with the board leadership to say, “We’re with you 100%.”

Now let’s take it to the rest of the board. And that first presentation to the board that we’re going buy land and relocate the campus, you can imagine there was going to be somebody in the bunch that would probably think, I’m not sure about this.

There were worries; there were legitimate concerns from a few that asked if we could afford it and asked, “Is this the right thing to do? I can’t imagine we could do something of this magnitude.”

So we walked through and talked through those challenges. And I personally still had some doubts as well. Can we really make this happen?

We just took one step at a time. OK, if we’re going to do this, we’ve got to first all agree to buy land. Then the next thing is, how are we going to move forward in trying to create a plan for the campus? I got a green light every step along the way.

They were worried at a few points along the way. The pandemic happened right in the middle of planning for this and building the new campus. So you can imagine there was a lot of concern about: Can we really do it given the climate that we’re in now, supply chain issues, all of the many possibilities of things that could go wrong.

We just stayed the course. And I kept moving forward with my team, the design team, the construction team, keeping the board informed every step along the way. And also keeping the campus informed because the campus was anxious as well. Can we really do it? And am I OK with the idea of us relocating the campus?

So there were feelings on all sides about what we’d chosen to do. I think today; there’s a lot of excitement. Some worry still, but a lot of excitement about our new campus because now they can see it. 

They’ve been in there; they’ve toured. We bring groups over to see the progress in hard hats. We’ve been bringing everyone along with us, so it feels like they’re part of something big.

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