The University tallied up the numbers of its six-year capital campaign last week, wrapping up the second-most successful campaign in the history of public universities.
The key to the success of the $1.43 billion campaign was the huge drive to contact and encourage potential donors.
The Office of Development, along with President John T. Casteen III and the chairmen of the campaign, Thomas Saunders and Ed Mitchell, have worked for the past six years to cultivate relationships with the donors and create a strategy in order to reach the $1 billion goal of the campaign.
The University started the campaign in 1995 to compensate for the decrease in state funding in the early '90s. The University was hit hard by budget cuts in the General Assembly and saw the need for funding to remain a nationally ranked University, said Ed Mitchell, the current co-chair of the campaign.
The chairmen raised the campaign goal twice during the course of the campaign to reflect new earning potential and in the end exceeded the second goal of $1 billion.
The campaign picked up momentum in the last year, raising $200 million.
Mitchell said this is unusual for capital campaigns.
"Most campaigns end with a whimper but we went out with a bang," he said.
He added that this shows promise for the future of the campaign.
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The success of the campaign was largely due to the University's increased effort to seek out and cultivate potential donors. The creation of the Office of Development in the early '90s and the Board of Visitors' move to change Casteen's role from resident leader to traveling fund-raiser were ways the University scrambled to find adequate funding.
Finding large donors
Alumni donations make up about 45 percent of the total amount raised by the campaign. The median donation in the campaign was about $150, but many wealthy alumni gave multi-million dollar gifts.
The Office of Development put much of its effort into finding these multi-million dollar donations because they made up large portions of campaign intake.
"A rule of thumb for capital campaigns is that 5 percent of the donors give about 80 to 90 percent of the money," Campaign Co-Chair Thomas Saunders said.
In order to contact these potential donors, University officials travel around the country speaking at dinners and meetings of local alumni associations. They go to places with large alumni bases such as Richmond, Washington, Dallas, New York and Los Angeles to present the University's goals to alumni.
All alumni who showed interest in the University were invited to the dinners, Mitchell said. Casteen was the main spokesperson, and local alumni made speeches as well. The purpose of the dinners was to begin to build relationships with alumni.
Relationship building is key to obtaining the large donations, Charles Fitzgerald, associate vice president and director for development said.
He said paying attention to the potential donor's interests is important when talking to alumni. Some donors are interested in creating professorships, while others are interested in contributing funds toward athletics or the building of new facilities.
"We connect our alumni and friends with their areas of interest at the University," Fitzgerald said.
Saunders said it takes many years to cultivate a relationship with a large donor.
"It's not just a quick phone call," he said. "It usually involves Casteen and five or six volunteers that are intimately involved with that donor."
Once University officials form a relationship with donors, the Office of Development matches contributors with a program that suits their interests.
"If we don't have that program, we will create it," Director of Regional Programs Andy Selfridge said. "Donors' wishes are paramount."
The Carl Smith Center at Scott Stadium, the Robertson Media Center and the Batten Institute at the Darden School are all examples of projects funded by large donors in the campaign.
Board of Visitors Member William H. Goodwin Jr. donated $13.3 million to the Darden School because he felt he owed his success to the school.
"I wanted to donate to the Darden School to pay back what it gave to me," Goodwin said.
Encouraging all alumni to give
Even though million dollar donations make up a large percentage campaign funds, Fitzgerald emphasized the importance of low-level donations.
"Our rankings are affected by the percentage of alumni that give to the school," he said.
Many people, especially young alumni, do not realize that their small donation makes a difference, Fitzgerald said.
He said these small gifts are a "living endowment" that the University can use now.
Small donors are also cultivated, but in a different manner than the large donors. Mailings and phone banks make up the main forms of communication with low-level donors.
The Office of the Development has a phone-a-thon program that enables University officials to keep in touch with alumni and to request donations. They hire University students to call alumni and encourage them to donate to the annual giving fund. Fitzgerald said students are more effective at obtaining donations because they can chat with the alumni about the University, stirring up positive emotions that encourage people to donate. Another way the Office of Development reaches out to alumni is through the Internet. People can make donations electronically on the office's Web site.
Elizabeth Smith, a 1984 College graduate, donates about $500 a year to the University.
Smith said many factors encourage her to donate. "I'm aware of how much the University's state funding has been cut," she said. "I also want to give back to a place where I would like my children to go."
She also said the University's high national ranking encourages her to donate because she wants her alma mater to succeed.
Looking toward the future
Now that the capital campaign has officially ended, the University is implementing plans for future fund-raising efforts. "There was great momentum at the end of the campaign, and we must maintain this momentum," Saunders said. The University will create a transition team, which will continue fundraising for other projects such as a new basketball arena, an arts precinct and a faculty endowment, he said.
The University does not want to stop fundraising like it did after the last capital campaign in the '80s. Because fundraising was not ongoing, it was difficult to start over in the '90s. "When we kicked off this campaign, we started at ground zero," Mitchell said. The Office of Development did not exist prior to this capital campaign. The focus of the office will now shift to raising money toward future projects and maintaining relationships with potential donors. The University hopes to continue to advance its national ranking by raising yearly donations from $200 million to $360 million, Selfridge said.
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Campaign Numbers |
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| *Number of gifts received during the campaign: |
508,580 |
| *Number of donors during the campaign |
142,327 |
| *Average gift size during the campaign: |
$2,808 |
| *Median gift size during the campaign: |
$150 |
| *Number of multiple donors during the campaign: |
107,149 |
| *Number of endowed professorships created by the campaign: |
154 |
| *Number of endowed graduate fellowships created by the campaign: |
154 |
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