School Aims to Collect $3 Billion by 2011
By Susan Kinzie
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Robert Sweeney and his staff need to raise $1,025,045 for the University of Virginia today. Another $1,025,045 tomorrow.
And the next day. And the next. For 2,921 days.
"There's a lot of pressure with this," said Sweeney, the school's senior vice president for development and public affairs.
When U-Va. announced its goal to raise $3 billion from alumni and other supporters between 2004 and 2011, it was the biggest fundraising campaign ever launched by a public university. Sweeney is at the center of a push that might not only have an impact on U-Va. -- he thinks it could help redefine what a public school can be.
After a few decades of dwindling state support for higher education across the country, other public schools -- such as the University of Maryland, which has accelerated fundraising and is in the midst of a $1 billion campaign -- are watching the machinery that schools such as U-Va. have built to find, track and cultivate donors.
Sometimes it's like detective work, with development staff piecing together profiles of alumni that describe the jobs they hold, the stocks they own and the neighborhoods they live in.
Sweeney's vision is to stay true to U-Va.'s public mission of affordable, accessible education but to raise the many millions generated each year by private universities such as Harvard, Yale and Johns Hopkins.
U-Va. is almost halfway to its goal, with $1.375 billion raised since the campaign was unofficially launched in 2004. The pressure isn't abating: Some media associations have pushed for access to records on anonymous donors, wondering whether some are trying to trade money for influence.
Students protested in the spring when Sweeney was recognized for his work at the school by being allowed to live in a house on the heart of the U-Va. campus. The house is on the Lawn, designed by Thomas Jefferson, and the area has traditionally been home to top seniors and faculty who host students for dinner and discussions. To use the historic home as a scenic backdrop for fundraising struck some as a betrayal of the school's principles. Some seniors taped "FOR SALE" signs to their doors.
And there is pressure to spread the money around. Fundraisers try to shrink the gap between schools such as nursing and law, whose alumni have varying degrees of wealth.
Fundraisers also work to bring in unrestricted gifts, which can be used to pay bills and patch leaks, things that don't interest most donors, who prefer to fund the cool stuff: transformative ideas, new buildings, scholarships.
And still, U-Va. needs to raise $1,025,045 today.
"And if we don't get it today," Sweeney said, "then tomorrow we have to raise two million-fifty."
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Public universities have been known as "state-supported schools," but state funding has long been mercurial. U-Va. President John T. Casteen III started pushing for more private dollars when he arrived in 1990. In 2000, university leaders changed their financial strategy, cutting their reliance on the commonwealth and, with Sweeney's success, dramatically increasing fundraising. Now the portion of the university budget from state appropriations is 9 percent -- barely more than the share from gifts and the endowment.
Since 1990, the philanthropic cash flow has increased almost 500 percent.
"When I came, the world was about to change," said Jeannette Lancaster, who became dean of the school of nursing in 1989. "The person who preceded me, fundraising was a very minor part of her role." Lancaster spends hours signing thank-you letters, checking donors' nicknames and adding personal notes.
And so it goes, school by school. U-Va. has 14 foundations, each with an independent board. They work together, sort of.
"The university has a huge, computerized tracking system," which Lancaster checks before pursuing a gift. "The reason it's so systematic is so you don't absolutely wear donors out. Let's say there's someone who graduated from three of the schools and is a big athletics fan. You can't have four entities approaching the person. So you have to find out: Can you get clearance? Is it your turn? Is it okay?"
More is at stake not only because the school is more dependent on private money but because the gifts the school is getting are so much bigger. This year, U-Va. received $100 million to launch a new school, the university's largest gift ever and the biggest single goal when the campaign began.
Fundraisers are looking for another $100 million gift.
As of the end of August, 64 of the 99,000 donors had given 54 percent of what had been raised. "My guess is," Sweeney said, "of the $3 billion, the top 100 gifts will make up half of the $3 billion. You're talking very large gifts."
At a meeting this summer discussing the approaching halfway point, Sweeney told his staff: "Part of it might be convincing myself that we're all right on the number right now. With any luck, we'll get there."
So how does the school bring in money?
Fundraisers start with the records of 180,000 alumni. They hone their list using tools including demographic screening software that shows neighborhoods by income, the cars people drive, and so on. They look up public information, such as stock and real estate and holdings. A traveling development officer might ask for "road warrior sheets," summaries of all prospects for $500,000 or more in a city, and then ask U-Va. volunteers in the region about them.
Here's how it plays out, Sweeney said:
"He's an alum. Let's go back, look at his giving record. He's given $125 a year. Has not come back to reunions." Brightening, Sweeney continues: "He was a member of the university guides and lived on the Lawn. Wow! Then do demographic data -- let's look at stock holdings. Does he show up in investment data? Then look up his company. He works for Blue Ridge Capital. Oh, my God! Blue Ridge Capital are venture capitalists. Then we'll go and Google Blue Ridge Capital. Lo and behold, they've been involved in X number of ventures, taken three of them public . . . now worth $850 million!
"Some of these are private. Can we figure out what so-and-so might have gotten out of that? We might talk to others in investment banking or hedge funds or venture capital, alums now involved with us. 'Do you know so-and-so?'
"Someone will say, 'I'm betting they're worth $250 million.' "
Then the hard part. The guy's worth $250 million, and he has given $125 to U-Va.
"Either we've done a lousy job of communicating with them," Sweeney said, "or they're not interested."
Then fundraisers start trying to get appointments.
They don't ask for money. They start by asking how the alumnus feels about the university. Sometimes they invite people to weekend gatherings, on Martha's Vineyard or in Park City, Utah, to talk about the university's future.
Often, when calling on people, they'll hear: " 'My partner is Class of '81. If you think I've done well, this guy has knocked the cover off the ball! Let me see if he's in.' That happens again and again," Sweeney said. "All of a sudden, you've got all these networks evolving."
So the database keeps getting bigger and more detailed. Fundraisers identify 20,000 prospects who might give $10,000 or more. Eleven hundred people who might give $1 million or more. Four hundred who could make the top 100 gifts. And 100 who are known as presidential prospects -- any overtures to them have to be approved through Casteen's office.
Such as the man who recently donated almost $50 million for a new arena, Sweeney said. "We don't want people having sporadic, willy-nilly contact. He could be an institutional asset for hundreds of millions of dollars, for 40 years, a relationship enriching him and the University of Virginia for another generation."
During the last campaign, the original goal of $750 million was raised to $1 billion. The school exceeded that, so the bar was raised, said Jenny Wyss-Jones, assistant campaign director.
Even success boosts the pressure. Sweeney said he has heard talk that $3 billion "isn't enough to get us where we need to go."
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