University Times

As Pitt plans its first major capital campaign in six years, the University's Institutional Advancement office has identified some 1,500 prospective major donors — with documented wealth totaling over $5 billion — from among Pittsburgh campus alumni who graduated in 1965 or before.

"These are people who, based on their net worth, have the ability to give a gift of at least $100,000 [each] to the University," Vice Chancellor for Institutional Advancement Carol Carter told the University Senate's budget policies committee last month.

"This is only what we can document so far," Carter said.

Many of the prospects were identified by matching Pitt alumni files with the Investnet database. Investnet is based on Securities and Exchange Commission public disclosures of stock owned by individuals in companies in which they serve as officers and directors. "Investnet doesn't take into consideration the stock that these individuals may own in other companies," Carter pointed out. "So, the numbers we're using represent only the tip of the iceberg, I believe, when it comes to the total wealth of the individuals we've identified so far." Institutional Advancement has not yet trawled for major prospects among regional campus alumni or Pittsburgh campus alumni who graduated after 1965. But the office plans to do so soon, she said.

Pitt's Board of Trustees and administration have not set a campaign goal yet, "but lots of people are mentioning $500 million," Carter said. That would be twice the amount the University raised in its last major fundraising drive, which ran from 1987 to 1991.

Carter estimated that in a half-billion-dollar campaign, Pitt will need to approach 6,000-to-10,000 prospects who are able to contribute at least $25,000 each (going by the fundraisers' rule of thumb that only one of every three-to-five prospects will actually contribute).

Pitt must reduce its traditional heavy reliance on gifts from locally headquartered Fortune 500 corporations and charitable foundations, the vice chancellor said. "Nationally, corporate philanthropy is way down and foundation giving is flat. All of the growth is coming from individual giving." In addition to seeking a greater proportion of gifts from individuals, Pitt will target small- to medium-sized local businesses ("That's where a lot of the job growth has been here in recent years," Carter noted) as well as corporations and foundations outside of western Pennsylvania. "We are a national resource. We have to begin looking more to national corporations and foundations for support," she said.

A high rate of giving by Pitt trustees and employees is vital to a successful campaign — for its symbolic as well as its dollar value, Carter said. "It allows us to say to prospects: 'The people who know the University best, who work here day to day, are making this kind of commitment.'" "Any number of foundations ask to see your [institution's] percentage of giving by alumni and the total amount of money contributed by trustees," she said. "Sometimes you need to provide that information on an application in order to get an appointment with somebody at the foundation." Pitt trustees are eager to launch the new campaign, although a public kickoff may be a year or two away, Carter said.

Carnegie Mellon and Duquesne universities are in the late stages of major capital campaigns, and Penn State is expected to launch its next campaign at about the same time that Pitt's campaign begins. But Carter said the possible overlapping of university campaigns doesn't worry her.

"There's never any perfect time for a capital campaign, but I think this is a good time for a University of Pittsburgh campaign in southwestern Pennsylvania," she said. Carter cited the six-year break since Pitt's last campaign, strong interest by trustees, and the University's improving public image since 1995 under Chancellor Mark Nordenberg.

Institutional Advancement has begun working on a capital campaign budget; the University will hire a full-time campaign director and probably additional fundraising staff at least for the duration of the campaign, Carter said.

After budget policies committee members expressed concern that upfront campaign expenses would have to come out of a Pitt 1997-98 fiscal year budget that already is expected to be lean, Carter replied: "You never know. We may be able to convince a trustee to make an unrestricted gift and start paying on it next year, with the understanding that some of those dollars will go toward staffing the campaign." But she cautioned: "You can only do that with your very, very, very closest friends, if you can do that at all." n Budget policies committee member Gershon Mandelker, a faculty member in the Katz Graduate School of Business, brought up the controversy that arose in 1993 when some potential contributors to the fundraising drive for the College of Business Administration (CBA) balked at Pitt's policy of offering fringe benefits to same-sex domestic partners. The two trustees who were to have chaired the drive resigned from it, claiming that Pitt's administration ignored their warnings that the same-sex benefits policy could cost the CBA campaign $2 million-to-$10 million in contributions.

To what extent do you let prospective contributors dictate University policy? Mandelker asked.

Carter replied that Pitt senior administrators sometimes ask Institutional Advancement staff how they think a particular issue will "play" with potential contributors. But the administration doesn't mold Pitt policies to contributors' specifications, she said.

"People have strong opinions on that [same-sex benefits], there's no question about that. But those kinds of issues settle down over time," Carter said.

"There will always be people who look for an excuse not to give. If we believe that they are a good prospect, we will work with them to try and get them caught up in something that's very positive in their minds about the University, and try to deflect them away from the issue" that originally offended them.

One trustee who was a major opponent of the same-sex benefits policy has since become involved again in fundraising for the University, said Carter. She declined to identify the trustee.

n There are three key points in any major campaign, according to Carter: * The "quiet phase," during which staff fundraisers and volunteers work behind the scenes to raise 30 – 50 percent of the campaign goal, usually in large gifts and pledges.

* The public announcement of the campaign. "At that point, you say, 'Our goal is X, we've already raised Y, and this is what we're going to do with the money we raise,'" Carter said.

* The date the campaign officially ends.

"We're not quite in the quiet phase yet," Carter said.

Besides identifying prospective givers, Institutional Advancement is working with the Provost's office to write the University's "case for support," a public statement of Pitt academic and capital priorities. Such statements are most effective when they're simple, to the point and emotionally appealing, Carter said.

"Giving is definitely an emotional thing, especially with individuals" — although even corporate and foundation giving often is rooted in the emotional appeal of a particular research project or academic program, she said.

That's why a university's best "prospects" are people who earned their undergraduate degrees there, according to Carter. "In my 20 years in this field, I've seen that they [undergraduate alumni] are the ones who get most emotional on being able to reflect back to their undergraduate experience and what really excited them about it." Volunteers generally are more effective than professional fundraisers, Carter said. "We want to recruit and train volunteers as never before at the University of Pittsburgh. That starts with the trustees and goes down through the ranks." She cited a study of university fundraising which showed that prospective donors who were solicited by volunteers contributed four times as much money as donors solicited by staff fundraisers.

"Nothing is more powerful than the volunteer who has already made his or her commitment, giving testimony to a prospective contributor as to why they did what they did," Carter said.

She likened the solicitation process to a dance. "We want the prospect to think that they're leading the process. But, as their partner representing the University, we need to lead them to where support is most needed…We don't want to raise money for things that we don't need." From first approach to closure of a gift, the "dance" can take anywhere from a month to several years, Carter said.

The critical stage in fundraising comes after a donor has made his or her contribution, she said. She called this the "stewardship" phase: providing feedback to donors, telling them what a difference their gift made, perhaps introducing them to faculty and students whose work they helped to support. "Hopefully, with the right kind of feedback, we can keep that cycle of giving going and cultivate them for the next gift. Our best prospects for future support are our past donors."

— Bruce Steele