Chasing Donor Dollars: Schools' comprehensive campaigns

University of Arkansas concluded a $900 million fundraising campaign in 2005. University of Missouri has raised about $900 million of its $1 billion goal with more than a year left on the “For All We Call Mizzou” campaign. University of Notre Dame in Indiana launched a $1.5 billion campaign last May.

Big picture

When MU launched its campaign, it joined 24 public universities with $1 billion efforts under their belts.

Figures aren’t near that level locally, but Springfield’s higher-learning institutions have gotten into the comprehensive campaign game.

“A comprehensive campaign includes more than just buildings,” said Jim Williams, vice president of institutional advancement at Evangel University. “It includes endowment funds for scholarships, and other endowment activities, as well as annual-fund activities.”

Evangel conducted the $50 million “Together We Can” campaign 1999–2005, using the money to build six buildings, supplement operations and establish endowments for scholarships, residence-hall restorations and general campus maintenance.

It was the first comprehensive campaign in Evangel’s 50-year history, according to Williams. The school had previously held fundraisers for specific projects, such as the construction in 1997 of an $8.5 million classroom building, Williams said.

The comprehensive model allowed Evangel to raise funds for not-so-glamorous needs such as replacing a steam boiler in a heating plant.

“Not many people get excited about giving to replace a boiler,” Williams said.

Missouri State University also wrapped up a five-year, $50 million campaign in 2005. The majority of that money went to endowments for a variety of scholarships and professorships, according to Brent Dunn, vice president of university advancement. The professorships are meant to give MSU the ability to pay higher salaries to lure accomplished professors to campus.

Few building projects were part of MSU’s comprehensive campaign, the first in school history – although the Jane A. Meyer Carillon at the campus library was built as a result, Dunn said.

MSU conducted a $10 million capital campaign in the 1980s specifically to build Glass Hall and Juanita K. Hammons Hall for the Performing Arts, Dunn said.

Comprehensive campaigns make a big difference for a campus and “ultimately change lives of students,” Dunn said.

“All these things tie together, and we go out in a collective force to communicate where the future of the university is going,” Dunn said.

Financial feelers

Leaders with both Drury University and Ozarks Technical Community College are plotting how to fund their schools’ futures.

Drury President Todd Parnell is moving forward with a long-range plan that contains a vision statement and strategic goals, including strengthening academic support programs, funding scholarships, recruiting top-notch faculty and developing community service projects.

The plan, approved by the Drury Board of Trustees in October, also contains language about how Drury will pay for its strategic goals. It states that Drury will launch a $100 million comprehensive campaign by 2010, although Parnell said he’s reconsidering those figures.

“There’s no magic in that number or that date,” said Parnell, who was interim president when the plan was approved. “I really want to review the whole premise and really try to get my arms around the long-term financial picture before I make a formal proposal.”

Since accepting the presidency in January, he’s decided to develop his own financial objectives, which should be in place by summer, he said.

Charles Taylor, Drury’s vice president of academic affairs, added that the $100 million plan is a “star by which we’d steer,” developed through discussions since 2004.

“I guess it would be a general sense of the ballpark of financial resources we’d be looking at,” Taylor said.

OTC is a little further along in its quest for donor funds.

On Jan. 1, OTC launched a two-year comprehensive campaign. For about eight months, the campaign will be in the silent phase, which is when a leadership team is formed, a plan and financial goals are established, and groundwork is laid with potential donors, according to Cliff Davis, executive director of OTC Foundation.

By fall, OTC officials expect to announce the campaign goal and enter the public solicitation phase.

Preceding the launch, OTC conducted a feasibility study, during which officials contacted 69 people in the community with “influence and affluence” and determined that enough support existed for a fundraising campaign, Davis said.

OTC officials had previously identified seven needs that would cost an estimated $28 million. Davis said the comprehensive campaign goal would likely be much lower than $28 million, and he said they’ve narrowed their priorities to four projects: a $3 million center for work force development, a $5 million allied health facility, a $2.5 million student support facility and $5 million in scholarship endowments.

“We still have to see what the level of interest is by our potential donors over the next eight months,” Davis said.

MSU also is sending out feelers to donors for a potential campaign launch some time in the next five years, Dunn said. Evangel will likely hold another comprehensive campaign in the future, although nothing’s in the works, Williams said.

So will MSU’s next campaign take it to the same league as campaigns conducted by MU, UA and Notre Dame?

Dunn doesn’t think so.

“I think eventually campaigns will get bigger and bigger, (but) it’s a big jump from $50 million to $500 million,” he said.