Departments
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27 August 1999 |
Vol. III, No. 4 |
Feature
Article
University raises record-breaking $73.4 million in FY'99
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Christopher Reaske, vice
president for development and alumni relations,
talks about the period of unprecedented growth in
annual gift income that BU has recently
experienced. |
Extending a four-year period of unprecedented growth in annual giving, Boston University brought in $73.4 million during the 1999 fiscal year, which ended June 30. The fundraising effort surpassed the $72 million goal set by the Office of Development and Alumni Relations and buried the previous year's record haul of $61.4 million. It also represented a near-doubling of annual gift income since 1995.
President Westling and BU trustee Edward Masterman congratulated development and alumni relations staff at the office's Fourth Banner Year Celebration. In what has become an annual ritual, Westling recognized the University's fundraising achievement by donning a tricorn hat furnished by Christopher Reaske, vice president for development and alumni relations.
"This," Westling said of the hat, "started as a bet with Dr. Reaske over whether or not he could meet the annual target. I thought my dignity was safe. But I was wrong, and I was delighted to be wrong. And I hope I will continue to be wrong for many years to come.
"You can tell that what you are doing is important to me," Westling added. "If it were not, I assure you that I would not wear this absurd thing. But it serves as a symbol of the really remarkable progress all of you have made."
The $73.4 million, Reaske says, solidifies a pattern of increases in annual giving that approach or exceed 20 percent. Because that's 20 percent of a larger target figure every year, the hill that University fundraisers have to climb is constantly steepening. But building the annual gift fund, he says, is more like a downhill run in at least one respect: forward movement generates momentum.
"Success breeds greater intensity," says Reaske. "Over the past few years, the operation has become more rigorously professional, and there are simply higher standards for everybody. People are all working more creatively and at a faster pace."
That sense of collective effort is infectious, Reaske adds, and fosters a second sort of fundraising momentum. Professionally successful members of various alumni constituencies are reconnecting with the University as never before. Often, says Reaske, they bring former classmates with them.
"We've been working hard to get alumni more involved with the University," he says. "Then they're more likely to be open to supporting it financially. And our alumni really start to come forward when they see others coming forward. They want to join a winning team."
Reaske says that the deans of BU's 15 colleges and schools are indispensable to annual fundraising drives. His office, he says, receives uncommonly strong, broad-based support from the University administration, as Westling's remarks at the July 14 event suggest.
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"I had set a goal with the president of trying to endow a large number of new professorships -- we hope to establish 10 in the coming year." |
"Jon Westling, as president, is playing a wonderful leadership role in our development and alumni activities," says Reaske. "He's traveled with me all over the country and the world in the last three years, and indeed we will be going all over the country and the world in the next six months.
"Of course it's great not only to have the president so engaged," he says, "but also to have Chancellor John Silber, who is overseeing a number of fundraising projects, in particular the Judaic Studies fundraising. And we benefit enormously from things like Executive Vice President Joseph Mercurio's work on the Marsh Plaza fundraising effort. Dennis Berkey, as provost, is working very effectively on recreational facilities fundraising. This degree of interest at the senior level has been one of the real rewards of my time here."
The money will help support development and expansion of University initiatives "across the board," Reaske says. "I had set a goal with the president of trying to endow a large number of new professorships -- we hope to establish 10 in the coming year." He also names increased scholarship support, funding for an early childhood center at SED, and creation of new facilities for LAW and the expanding CAS biology and chemistry departments as among the University's top priorities. "We have a huge number of what are called capital needs -- bricks and mortar, essentially," he says.
Reaske hopes to elevate annual gift income to over $100 million in the first year or two of the new millennium. Establishing such a beachhead will enable him to launch, with confidence, a full-scale capital campaign. "When we prove that we can raise $100 million in a year," he says, "we will be comfortably positioned to start a five-year University-wide capital campaign, knowing that we can raise half a billion or more."
At the July 14 celebration, he unveiled his office's fundraising goal for fiscal year 2000: an ambitious $85 million.
"That's the toughest part of the job," Reaske says. "There's no real chance to pause. It's got to be very sustained. You have a couple of days of celebration, and then you realize that the meter is running."