UNLV Foundation loses two fundraisers

Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2006 | 7:46 a.m.

In an organization already reeling from high turnover, two more employees have resigned from the UNLV Foundation.

The resignations come in the wake of a Sun investigation that found the organization was overstating its fundraising success. Neither has been connected to the foundation's troubles.

UNLV President David Ashley said Tuesday the resignations were due to employees finding better opportunities, and that they would not hurt the university's fundraising efforts.

"People don't give to development officers, they give to programs," Ashley said.

Frederick Conboy, associate vice president for development in charge of major gifts, left Friday to become chief fundraiser at the Community College of Southern Nevada. Conboy could not be reached for comment, but sources said he was frustrated by how the foundation was conducting its current $500 million campaign and was excited to take charge of a fundraising effort elsewhere.

Phillip Hilliard, who was in charge of identifying prospective donors and researching how much money they might be able to donate to UNLV, leaves this Friday to take what he said is a better job out of state. He didn't elaborate, but said he was not leaving because of problems at the foundation.

The Sun reported Sept. 24 that of the $334 million the foundation had claimed to have raised in its "Invent the Future" campaign, more than 40 percent would not have been counted if national guidelines had been followed. About $123.8 million was in bequests that will not benefit UNLV until after the donors die, and 26 pledges had extended payment periods that violated both national and Board of Regents guidelines.

Nine current and former foundation employees told the Sun that numbers were being inflated under pressure to meet the campaign goal, and that the foundation did not have the staffing necessary to handle such an ambitious undertaking.

High turnover has plagued the UNLV Foundation throughout the campaign. Nearly half of the staff of about 40 has been hired within the last two years, including most of the development officers assigned to raise money for specific colleges on campus.

It often takes two years to identify and cultivate relationships with sources to ask for a major gift, fundraising experts said.

Conboy and Hilliard are the latest in a string of personnel changes at the foundation. After a rash of resignations last spring and summer, John Gallagher, vice president for development and executive director of the foundation, hired a new development officer for athletics, two new development officers to handle annual donations and a new communications specialist. Even with those hires, the foundation still had three vacancies.

Gallagher, in previous interviews, said the turnover was normal because good fundraisers are in high demand. He could not be reached for comment Tuesday.