Two quick academic links:
First, Eugene Wallingford on fundraising, which these days extends down to the departmental level. He has good thoughts on the raising of money, and the issues he talks about sound awfully familiar.
I'd add one thing to his advice-- if you're pursuing big gifts, make sure the donor is as specific as possible about what they want done with the money. My alma mater got an unexpected bequest of a rather large sum of money to the physics department, but the will was vague on what that meant, leading to some frantic scrambling and high-stakes bargaining. It would've been better for the department if the details had been hashed out in advance.
(Eugene's post also reminds me of the general topic of extracting alumni donations, and I really should write a post about the remarkable fundraising machinery my undergrad alma mater deploys. One of these days.)
On a lighter note, the Dean Dad has been to one faculty meeting too many. At least one.