On a Saturday in late in November 2008, applause filled the Syracuse University Carrier Dome during the half time football game. Syracuse was playing Virginia and was ahead by 7 points. The Syracuse University’s Dome was a $2.5 million dollar naming gift from Carrier Corporation in the late 1980’s. Jen Marguerta¹ a Syracuse University Development Officer sat next to John Tuft and his family in the front row seating area reserved for VIP guests. Donovan McNabb had just been announced and headed toward the stage and microphone setup for halftime. “I am here to present the recipient for the first John Tuft Football Scholarship. This scholarship is awarded to a student who applies early to Syracuse, is accepted early decision, and displays athletic ability, academic performance, and leadership qualities on and off the playing field. And the scholarship is awarded to Brandon Young..” Brandon Young comes out on the field and up to the stage. McNabb is one of his favorite football players of all times. He shakes hands with McNabb and takes the microphone. I would like to say thanks to my family and Mr. Tuft and his family for making this possible.” Brandon gives the microphone back to Mcnabb who continues..” We would like to say thanks and to acknowledge John Tuft who is in the stadium with us today. John please stand up..” John stood up and the crowd applauded. The Syracuse Orange players go on to win the game by 10 points. After the game, Jen, John, his family, and Brandon headed to the Dinosaur Café in Syracuse for dinner. Dinner provided an opportunity for John and Brandon to get to know each other.¹² It was also import to Jen who had developed a relationship with John Tuft. Jen understood the importance of Syracuse Football to John because of the impact it had on him when he was a student at Syracuse ten years earlier. He was a strong player but never made it to the NFL. John had the fond memories of belonging to a team and developed friendships that would last years after he left school and that was important to him.⁶ Brandon had a similar high school background to John. Both Brandon and John came from small high schools in the Midwest. Brandon was a strong football player and would be a strong player at SU. Like John, Brandon may not be athletic enough to make it to the NFL. More importantly John knew what Syracuse had to offer a student like Brandon. In return, he knew Syracuse had benefited with his endowments.

Two weeks prior to the Syracuse – Virginia game Jen had found out that Brandon and his family were going to visit Syracuse University to finalize acceptance into the undergraduate program through the research group that supports Institutional Advancement Donor Relations. John Tuft had setup the scholarship endowment fund in October 2008 as a first time large donor. John had chosen Brandon from the list of applicants. Jen was on the road traveling to Miami Florida to meet with Francen Haas when she checked her email via logging onto her S-PDA via a VPN connection.⁸ The Super PDA was a more robust small computer, video cell phone, and organizer⁹ than the original models that were available in 2005 when she accepted the Development Officer position at Syracuse. The University had decided that all Development officers would use the new S-PDA’s a year earlier in 2007.³ The security features and dependability were advanced enough that Institutional Advancement chose the model as a part of their IT strategy.⁷ Kristen Baden one of the researcher’s at Syracuse had left her an e-mail with the great news. She had logged into BSR through a VPN that established a secure connection and looked up John Tuft’s information.  John Tuft lived in Fort Lauderdale one hour from where she was staying in Miami. Jen called up John on PDA phone and invited him to dinner Friday the following evening. John Tuft had accepted the invitation.² Jen’s plan was to discuss John attending Syracuse’s football game against Virginia and meeting Brandon, the recipient of John’s scholarship fund. Jen had looked at her calendar and the full day she had ahead of her before she was due to meet with John.

She had a meeting with Francen Haas at 11:00 AM at his global headquarters at 80210 Downtown Drive in Miami. Francen had graduated from Syracuse University in 2003. He earned his degree in the Master’s Program in Information Studies in 2003. After graduation he started a small start up company in Brain Intelligence Technology (BIT) and became the leader in prosthetic limb technology. People who lost limbs have the opportunity to live normally with prosthetic limbs that function using brain electrochemical impulses. By inserting a chip into the brain it registers the impulses and sends instructions to the prosthetic limb. Francen was a current donor to Syracuse University. Jen knew the history of his donations because the history was available on BSR. ¹¹ The meeting was to setup a gift annuity of one million dollars a year.

Jen had been nervous on Monday about the meeting with Francen and the discussion of gift annuities because that wasn’t her area of expertise. She was considered one of Syracuse’s top Development Officers in scholarship endowments. Institutional advancement had created a team excellence approach for the Development Officers a few years ago. The Development Officers were teamed with other Development Officers with alternate strengths. Kim Lau was the team mate who Jen went to when she needed direction on gift annuity questions. Like so, Kim went to Jen when she needed assistance with scholarship endowments.⁴ Jen and Kim had discussed the feasible options to discuss with Francen. Kim had e-mailed Jen material to cover in the meeting with Francen. Jen was optimistic that she had the top three gift annuity options that Francen would be interested in based on his profile and history of giving to SU. Jen also knew that if she needed additional information Kim would be willing to assist her.

Jen had finished the meeting at 2 PM that Friday and was successful. Francen wanted to commit to an annuity of one million dollars a year and go with option 1, cash annuity. Francen was going to finalize the paperwork and send the legal papers to Syracuse the following week. After the meeting at BIT Incorporated, Jen drove directly to Fort Lauderdale to meet with John Tufts for dinner and discussed with him the opportunity of meeting the recipient of his scholarship at a football game at Syracuse. Obviously, he had agreed.