The start of a brand-new era for Northwestern Michigan College (NMC): That’s how NMC President Nick Nissley views the arrival of Dino Hernandez, who starts his new gig as NMC’s first-ever chief advancement officer (CAO) today. As NMC eyes bigger and bolder fundraising initiatives to help pay for ambitious new campus plans, program expansions, and other sweeping changes, Nissley says Hernandez will be arguably the key player in making it all happen.

A common role within nonprofit and educational organizations, a CAO is typically responsible for sustaining, growing, and managing philanthropic giving for their institution. Per a previous announcement from NMC, Hernandez “will lead all fundraising endeavors for the NMC Foundation,” the nonprofit that assists the college with fundraising and development, but will also have “oversight” over the Dennos Museum Center, the International Affairs Forum, and the WNMC radio station. Hernandez will also work alongside Diana Fairbanks, the college’s long-time PR lead, to “oversee executive administrative functions for public relations, marketing, and communications.”

While the CAO job title is a first within NMC’s ecosystem, Nissley says the functions of the role aren’t entirely novel.

“We previously had a position titled ‘executive director of the NMC Foundation,’ so this isn't exactly a new job, but it is a reformulation of that old executive director role,” Nissley says. “In the world of fundraising, typically one of two models exist: Either there is a head of fundraising, which typically is the person who leads the organization's foundation; or there is this structure of an advancement office, which typically a CAO leads. What we’re doing is pivoting from that foundation executive director structure to a CAO structure.”

When asked about the value such a shift will bring – and why it represents a significant new dawn for NMC – Nissley says the former executive director of the NMC Foundation “was only focused on the fundraising aspect,” while Hernandez will have the bigger-picture responsibility of managing all the college’s external relationships.

“At a college, you’ve got a provost or a VP of academics who manages all the internal relationships, especially with faculty,” Nissley explains. “The CAO, meanwhile, is the person whose work is to promote the college and our achievements to our external audiences. The role brings together that fundraising or development function [of the foundation director] with our public relations, our marketing, our communications, our alumni relations, and puts them all under one umbrella.”

“The CAO’s job is about advancing the mission of the college, and they do that by engaging the community and building relationships,” Nissley continues. “That comes back to fundraising and development because the bottom line is: How do you encourage investment in support of our students? And that’s why we’re putting the Dennos, the International Affairs Forum, and WNMC under that umbrella, too, because we see opportunity to leverage those things – all outward-facing units of the college that engage our external audiences – to encourage that investment.”

The elephant in the room is the ambitious vision NMC has sketched out for the next 5-10 years, a vision Nissley says will likely carry a substantial price tag. Last month, the college approved a new campus master plan, which recommended the demolition and reconstruction of most of NMC’s student housing assets – among a slew of other campus tweaks and investments. Those projects, along with a long-gestating expansion of NMC’s aviation program and the construction of the Traverse City Freshwater Research & Innovation Center – a project in which NMC is a key partner – will demand access to considerable capital.

Nissley expects that these projects and others will soon necessitate the biggest fundraising campaign in the history of the college – bigger, even, than NMC’s recent, record-breaking Be What’s Possible campaign. Launched in 2016, Be What’s Possible carried an initial fundraising goal of $35 million, but ended up beating that number by more than $5 million by the time it wrapped in mid-2021. NMC’s big future plans – along with inflation, rising construction costs, and other economic drivers – mean the college’s next fundraising effort will likely need to be even more ambitious, and will demand significant buy-in and philanthropic assistance from the local community.

Whatever that next fundraising effort turns out to be, Hernandez will be in the driver’s seat. In fact, Nissley says NMC picked him specifically because of his proven track record with massive fundraising efforts.

“Dino spent 13 years at Lawrence Technological University, and while he was there, he undertook two campaigns,” Nissley says. “The first one had a $20 million goal, but came in at $46 million – so, along the same lines of what we did with Be What’s Possible. But he also helped lead a second campaign at Lawrence Tech, which had a goal of $75 million but ended up raising $110 million. That second campaign was a piece that was really attractive to me [in hiring Hernandez], because that’s more than double what we did with Be What’s Possible. And while we haven’t even begun doing the planning [for our next campaign], I think our assumption is that whatever that next campaign is, it will likely need to be about double what we did before. Well, here’s a guy who’s done that and knows how to do that.”

Nissley adds that NMC will likely “begin planning for that next campaign the day Dino walks through the door,” though he estimates that a formal public launch is still “three years or so” down the road.

Hernandez, a Michigan native himself – he grew up in the southeastern part of the state – tells The Ticker he’s “excited to be coming home, especially at this beautiful time of year in northern Michigan,” and is looking forward to the challenges that await him at NMC.

“I'm thrilled to join the NMC team at this exciting time,” Hernandez says. “The college has enjoyed years of community and philanthropic support, and now has a strategic vision and a master facilities plan that create a path for the next decade. Together, we can follow that path and fulfill the vision for a thriving college that ultimately benefits the community we serve.”