Public colleges tap private funds as state support dwindles

Twenty years ago, “fundraising in any aggressive way was simply not on the radar screen” of regional state universities and younger research universities, said Gary Rubin, vice president for university advancement at Towson.

The typical college raises private dollars largely from a small group of wealthy and older alumni. Plaques on ancient campus buildings bespeak the tradition of giving.

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But up-and-coming state colleges have no tradition to tap. The average George Mason graduate is 42, and few are over 60. Half of the alumni of UMBC, founded in 1966, graduated in the past 15 years. Towson and James Madison transformed from small teacher colleges into comprehensive state universities in the 1960s. None of the schools have much experience with university-wide fundraising campaigns.

Younger alumni are often eager to give. But most of them are not yet in their prime giving years.

“We’re really young, and our alumni are really young,” said Lisa Akchin, associate vice president of UMBC.

Fundraisers have been forced to find ways to connect with youthful alumni.

When George Mason officials set about building up their fundraising operation four years ago, they realized they had never held an alumni weekend. They pitched the annual event to an audience of 30-somethings and young parents, with a craftsman beer-tasting table and a face-painting booth.

Fundraisers have learned to communicate with younger alumni via personal e-mail rather than form letter, and by cellphone instead of land line. George Mason and VCU have parlayed NCAA basketball tournament success into donations; George Mason alumni are reminded to give by announcers at games.

It’s not hard to sell young alumni on contributing to their ascendant university.

“This is a place where new ideas, good ideas, all get heard, get listened to, get acted upon,” said Jimmy Hazel, a 1984 George Mason law graduate who is active in fundraising.

Despite dramatic fundraising gains, younger state universities still lag behind some more-established schools in alumni giving. George Mason raised about $1 million a year from its alumni in fiscal 2010 and about $31 million from other sources, chiefly corporations, according to the industry survey. U-Va. raised $48 million from alumni and nearly $200 million from all private donors.

Fundraising is accelerating at public colleges nationwide in response to dwindling state revenues.

Two or three decades ago, public flagship universities lagged behind private national universities in fundraising, according to John Lippincott, president of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. Their leaders counted on generous state subsidies, and most alumni assumed their alma maters could get along without private support.

Today, billion-dollar fundraising campaigns are the norm among public flagships, and other public colleges are learning the game.

“I’d say the public regional institutions are now trying to catch up with the public research institutions, which have demonstrated that they can be as successful as the private institutions,” Lippincott said.

The University of Mary Washington, a onetime public women’s college that split off from U-Va. in 1972, is about to embark on a $50 million capital campaign, the second in its history.

In the school’s brief lifetime, the share of its revenues coming from the state has slipped from more than 80 percent to about 20 percent.

“This will be a stretch for us, to try to raise $10 million a year,” said Torre Meringolo, vice president for advancement. “But I think we can make a case for it.”