Concerns arise over UCCPS funding

Leaders at the University College of Citizenship and Public Service (UCCPS) are concerned that the Omidyar Foundation, its founding donor, may not provide additional further funding, according to an internal UCCPS memo written to University President Larry Bacow and other administrators last spring.

The Omidyar Foundation (TOF) donated $10 million for the creation of UCCPS three years ago, with the understanding that if certain goals were met, a further donation would be made five years later.

One of those goals was fundraising, and according to the memo, TOF has increased pressure on UCCPS to diversify its funding so that it is less dependent on the foundation.

Six weeks before the current fiscal year, TOF made what it called "adjustments" to UCCPS's annual budget. UCCPS said it would like TOF to set more specific fundraising targets for UCCPS, restate its commitments, set goals for further funding, and provide more positive reinforcement.

"TOF's approach of only applying pressure is not the best recipe for building internal support," the memo stated. It also said TOF had been "silent" last year on the issue of a further donation.

But TOF Vice President of Civic Engagement Lisa Spinali said that the memo was wrong, and that TOF had been clear in its goals to UCCPS. "If [UCCPS] make[s] a significant progress towards the goals," Spinali said, then further funding will follow.

This memo comes at a critical juncture for UCCPS, which is approaching the halfway point between the original Omidyar Foundation donation and the five-year reassessment. To receive a second donation from TOF, they must stay close to the organization's goals within this time frame.

Though faculty involved with UCCPS admit that there have been problems at UCCPS in the past, there are visible signs of improvement, according to Child Development Lecturer Robert Hawkins, who worked with UCCPS last year. The UCCPS Faculty Fellows Program, which gives grants to faculty members for public service and research initiatives, is one such sign, he said.

Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Chris Swan, who received a Faculty Fellowship from the newly-created program, said that UCCPS "stalled out of the blocks, but I would say it righted itself pretty well."

TOF suggested that UCCPS raise $20 million by the end of the 2004-2005 academic year to diversify its funding. Thus far, $3 million has been made, and there are plans to raise the additional $17 million by soliciting donations from alumni and philanthropic foundations, according to Spinali and other internal documents.

Despite the slow start to fundraising, Spinali said that there is no reason to believe that UCCPS will not achieve the $20 million target.

"We still have two and a half more years," Spinali said. UCCPS and TOF are too concerned with expanding the college to worry about fundraising issues right now, she said.

UCCPS hopes to raise money through the University's next capital campaign, which it hopes will prominently feature the college. The campaign, however, is still in its early planning stages, and may not raise enough money in the next two years.

According to the memo, TOF is looking for Tufts to give financial support to UCCPS, whose annual operating budget is $2.5 million. This desire is understandable, UCCPS Dean Robert Hollister said, but it is not something he wants to see happen.

"There is no way we would be able to get that kind of money [from Tufts]," Hollister said. If UCCPS were to take that money, it would mean a loss of funding to other organizations, he said. "That's a recipe for internal conflict."

Various interpretations for the slow development of UCCPS have been offered. Some sources say past administrative incompetence may be to blame.

"The bottom line is that the operation of UCCPS has been flying by the seat of its pants," one source said. The source called UCCPS administrators ineffective, saying that they have not been able to articulate a clear vision for the program.

"This is simply a job too big for them to deal with," the source said.

But these problems may all be in the past, Swan said. "The path that UCCPS took is not what it was a year ago... I believe, today, the path is very clear," Swan said.

Others involved with UCCPS said that some of the improvements were thanks to TOF's involvement. "They really helped clarify the vision," Hawkins said.

Increased TOF involvement with UCCPS was not a reaction to anything UCCPS was doing, according to Spinali, who started working for TOF this May. "The intensity is greater because I have more time to dedicate to it," she said, now that TOF has increased its number of employees.

TOF has always billed itself as a venture-philanthropy firm that stays involved with its donations.

"I think we have had a very engaged relationship from the very beginning," said Lorna Lathram, former TOF Vice President of Civic Engagement, who preceded Spinali.

A lack of strategic planning may have been another reason for past problems may have been a lack of strategic planning. Some former faculty and staff who were involved say that UCCPS never fully achieved its vision.

"When things didn't go like in a textbook, [the administrators] started freaking," Lisett Garcia said. "UCCPS could have been something incredible and it just hasn't taken off." Garcia was involved in a student advisory group as a Tufts graduate student and left a little over a year ago.

It was difficult to define the role of UCCPS to outsiders when administrators did not yet have clearly-defined roles themselves, Garcia said. These initial questions grew into bigger problems as time went on. "If I had to point to anything, it just wasn't started the right way," she said.

An example of the lack of consistency in UCCPS is the Omidyar Scholars Program, which has changed in both size and requirements each year it has existed.

Because UCCPS started without a strategic plan in its early years, there may have not been the right structure for a successful program from the beginning. "I think that it's amazing that UCCPS was developed without a clear, articulated plan," one source said.

But Omidyar Foundation administrators said that there was nothing out of the ordinary regarding how UCCPS was started. "I would look at the first couple of years as how to take an idea and turn it into action," Spinali said.

But a similar institution to UCCPS decided that pre-planning was required. Stanford University's Haas Center for Public Service was initiated in 1984 after a year-long study of the state of Stanford students' public service commitments, and is now considered one of the more successful public service centers in the country.

It may not be appropriate, however, to compare the two organizations, according to Haas Center Development and External Relations Director Suzanne Abel. "Every university's history and programs are different," Abel said. "It is up to each institution's leadership as to what is the best way to start something like this."

Most start-ups actually do not begin with a strategic plan, Lathram said. "I think they did a very good job just trying to investigate any issues," she said. "Two years in the life of UCCPS is just a blink of an eye."

This "developmental approach" is better than formalized strategy, Hollister said.

This approach may have succeeded in allowing UCCPS to create a wide variety of programs, but it may also have resulted in high faculty turnover and short-lived programs.

UCCPS was created in the spring of 2000 to promote values of citizenship and public service at Tufts. It was spearheaded by former President John DiBiaggio and Tufts alumni and ebay founders Pierre and Pam Omidyar. Its centerpiece initiative is the Omidyar Scholars program, which provides students with funding to create their own community initiatives.