As colleges and universities across the country strive to improve their educational and research offerings, massive fundraising efforts in the form of capital campaigns are becoming increasingly prevalent.
Thirty higher education institutes are in the public phases of campaigns designed to raise a billion dollars or more. Tufts is among these with Beyond Boundaries, which aims to raise $1.2 billion.
Stanford University has the most ambitious campaign. Entitled the Stanford Challenge, it aims to raise $4.3 billion. Meanwhile, nearby Harvard University is in the quiet phase of a multi-billion dollar campaign that will be the largest in the history of higher education.
Tufts is not able to have such lofty aims because its operating budget is smaller than Harvard's and Stanford's, according to Director of Central Development Programs Christopher Simoneau.
Harvard, for example, has an operating budget of over $3 billion per year, half of which comes from the endowment. That budget scale is a prerequisite for launching multi-billion dollar campaigns. Tufts, however, has an operating budget of around $600 million, about 12 percent of which is paid for by the endowment.
Capital campaigns began as a way to raise money to construct something specific, such as a building, Simoneau said. While these types of campaigns still exist, he said that there has been a "trend to more comprehensive campaigns in the last 30 years."
Tufts had its first campaign in 1980, which aimed to raise $140 million. Twenty-seven years and two other campaigns later, that amount has been drastically increased.
According to Rae Goldsmith, a spokesperson for the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), there are two reasons for the increase in size and number of these campaigns.
"One is capital campaigns work. They're a very effective means for institutions to tell their stories and to connect them with donors," she said. "[The other is] institutions are constantly looking for alternative resources."
Modern campaigns generally focus on endowments and facilities, according to Ron Vanden Dorpel, Brown's senior vice president for university advancement.
Boldly Brown, a $1.4 billion campaign, was launched two years ago and will continue until December 31, 2010. Of this money, $660 million will be put toward the endowment and $200 million toward new facilities.
The rest will be used for discretionary spending ($225 million) and specific projects ($315 million).
In comparison, 60 percent of the Beyond Boundaries funds will go toward the endowment and eventually be used for goals such as need-blind admissions.
Regardless of the divisions, the money must be allocated before the campaign ever begins, according to Goldsmith.
"The institution has to really have set its goals carefully," she said. "It has to have a really good plan."
Once specific goals are set, they must be effectively articulated to potential donors. "Part of that plan involves not just the fundraising piece but the communications piece," Goldsmith said.
These potential donors can vary from school to school. At Brown, the donors are primarily alumni and parents, according to Vanden Dorpel.
They can also be people with no direct ties to the colleges to which they contribute.
"[Our] campaign's priority areas concern big, global problems that are not exclusive to Stanford and its community," Martin Shell, Stanford's vice president of development, said in an e-mail. "We have found broad support [for] several of these initiatives."
At Tufts, the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine and the Friedman Nutrition School are particularly "very engaged with friends" as opposed to alumni donations, Simoneau said. These friends are not affiliated with the school in any way other than that they "care about what we're doing."
Regardless of whom the money is coming from, capital campaigns are proving to be "the most cost-efficient and productive way to secure philanthropic resources," Shell said. "I see them continuing for the foreseeable future."
