Vassar's $400 million campaign goes public

At the opening of the sesquicentennial year, the College launched the public phase of its "Vassar 150: World Changing" $400 million capital campaign. The work on the campaign, however, began several years ago, leading Vassar to officially open the campaign on Jan. 18 with $262 million already received in gifts and pledges.

According to Vice President for Alumnae/i Affairs and Development Cathy Baer, "With the public launch now we want the entire community to know and to participate and understand what the goals are."

The campaign focuses on three broad areas of fundraising—Access to Excellence, Sciences for the 21st Century and the Annual Fund.

The idea for a campaign began near the end of President Frances Daly Fergusson's term at the College. The three themes then began to take shape when President Catharine Bond Hill arrived in 2006.

"The goals for the campaign arose from conversations on campus after I arrived in 2006," wrote Hill in an e-mailed statement. "We undertook a process to discuss and plan strategically for Vassar's future. These goals arose from those discussions. One (the Annual Fund) encompasses the entire College, one (science) focuses on the academic program, and one (access) supports our commitment to our students. Together they make a very powerful statement about our values and mission."

According to Baer, the goals of the campaign do not only set forth a mission for fundraising, but also articulate a vision of the College's priorities.

"It was clear to me that we needed to start moving to another campaign, partly to articulate a set of goals," said Baer. "You have to have an articulate vision for what it takes to get us there."

The College settled on the $400 million goal after an analysis of its alumnae/i base, history and research into peer colleges. "We did a study that underpinned the decision to raise $400 million," said College Trustee and Chair of the "World Changing" campaign Barbara Manfrey Vogelstein ‘76. "From both a top-down and a ground-up analysis, we found that $400 million made sense."

The Campaign Steering Committee, along with the Office of Alumnae/i Affairs and Development have spent the recently ended "nucleus," or "silent," phase of the campaign approaching friends of the College who might lead in donations, setting examples for other donors and laying a strong foundation for the campaign.

This is the first capital campaign that the College has undertaken in over 10 years. Vassar completed its last campaign in 1996, when the College succeeded in raising $206 million towards a variety of goals, including a renovation of the Thompson Memorial Library. According to Baer, the time between campaigns was unusually long for a college like Vassar.

This, however, is not the only difference between Vassar's "World Changing" campaign and those of peer colleges. By dividing the focus of the campaign between three broad categories, the College has specifically avoided creating a "laundry list" of projects, hoping instead to encourage more open-ended, unrestricted giving towards the Annual Fund and as well to the other two categories.

The Annual Fund, which supports approximately seven percent of the College's operating budget each year, is the area of fundraising where the majority of donors will likely participate. Gifts to the Annual Fund are unrestricted in the way that the College may spend them.

"We're just concentrating on three, and one is Vassar's Annual Fund. The Annual Fund is something that traditionally doesn't do well at colleges and universities when they're doing a campaign because everyone wants to give to the ‘big' priorities," said Director of Development Communication Lance Ringel. "It's basically a vote of confidence saying to the folks running Vassar at any particular time, ‘I believe in the College as a whole; you spend it the way you think it needs to be spent.'"

According to Baer, about 80 to 90 percent of all participants in the campaign will give to the Annual Fund. The aggregate gifts towards the Annual Fund will likely amount to more than $70 million. As Access to Excellence and Sciences for the 21st Century are umbrellas for several areas of fundraising, the aggregate gift to the Annual Fund would be the largest towards a single budget.

According to Vogelstein, "We're hoping that in recognition of Vassar's Sesquicentennial and the campaign, people will give more to the Annual Fund in the coming years." She explained that a $10,000 gift to the Annual Fund is equivalent to a five percent draw on a $200,000 endowment. "A gift like that is very meaningful."

Though this would be the largest single gift within the campaign, perhaps the broadest of the campaign is Access to Excellence, which will support financial aid as well as professorships through endowed chairs and some capital projects. The category of Access to Excellence will comprise about $250 million of the total, making it undoubtedly the largest pillar. Baer explained that the idea behind the name and the combination of goals is to improve the ability of students to fund their Vassar educations as well as to improve the quality of that education once they arrive on campus.

Associate Vice Principal for Principal Gifts Jennifer Dahnert identified scholarships as an area that has always been very popular among donors. "It's so deeply rooted in our core values as an institution," she said. "It's a concept that really resonates with Vassar people."

Fundraising for financial aid stretches well beyond the current or even near-future classes. "We know who our freshman class is going to be in 18 years," said Dahnert. "We are preparing Vassar's financial base." She described how the College can look at families who will be sending their children to college years from now and understand that that population is not getting wealthier. So, just as parents might financially prepare for their children to attend college, Vassar financially gets ready for them to arrive.

The most significant capital improvement included in the campaign, however, is focused around the sciences, specifically the development of an integrated science center (See "Science center plans presented" on Page 1).

Each of these three areas is meant to resonate with the College's history as much as they are meant to look towards the future. "It all seems so seamless to me," wrote Hill. "Our vision for Vassar's future is completely grounded in our history. Vassar has been changing the world since it was founded in 1861 and will continue to do so for the next 150 years."

And as the world has changed, so have the Vassar graduates in it. The new campaign is new not only for its approach and focus, but will also be Vassar's first large campaign to tap into today's particularly unique mix of alumnae/i in its donor base. This group of graduates includes women who attended Vassar while it was still a women's college, men and women graduates from the period of initial coeducation, and very recent graduates who experienced a more fully coeducational Vassar.

Since working on the last campaign more than a decade ago, Dahnert recognized the shift in the alumnae/i population. "We've really been preparing for this for a long time," said Dahnert. "I knew that we were cultivating a new generation of donors."

For Ringel, this poses interesting challenges in reaching out to these different groups. "It's a real challenge right now at this point in history because you have a whole cohort of people who are used to getting mail and letters, and you have people who are used to getting e-mails, and then you have other folks who have stopped reading their e-mail and only look at Facebook or Twitter. And you have to reach all of them, so that is an extra challenge. It's kind of reflective to me of where the College's alumnae/i base is," he said. "At the same time there's a commonality in what everyone values that you can stress across communications, so it makes it a very interesting time to do it."

In order to reach its ultimate goal, Vassar has been relying on alumnae/i not only to give, but also to lead others in giving. According to Dahnert, more than the previous campaign, the current effort relies on alumnae/i to solicit donations, who she says are in a good position to lead their classmates.

Vogelstein agreed. "The best way to persuade other people to give is to have done so oneself."

The results of the "World Changing" campaign are to be long-lasting in both the improvements to the College that its leaders have set out to achieve, and also in the philanthropic habit that they hope the campaign will inspire, including in Vassar's current student body. "Students should understand the importance of giving back," said Vogelstein.

"Approximately one third of the overall cost of their education is being contributed by people who came before they did."

According to Vogelstein, "Once people start getting in the habit of giving back, they will continue to do so." In this way, the legacy of the "Vassar 150: World Changing" campaign may remain past its official end date of June, 2013.