Triangle Business Journal - by James Gallagher
RALEIGH – Fundraising is down at the Triangle’s three research universities, and campus leaders are bracing for even more pain in the second half of their fiscal years.
Duke University, North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill each failed in the first half of fiscal year 2009 to match the level of donations they received during the first six months of fiscal year 2008.
Duke collected 21 percent less than it did a year ago. UNC’s take fell 32 percent, while NCSU was down by 49 percent. Universities typically measure their fiscal year from July 1 to June 30.
Both UNC and NCSU completed multibillion-dollar fundraising campaigns at the end of calendar year 2007, and donations typically spike before a campaign ends, explaining some of the drop between fiscal years 2008 and 2009.
NCSU also received a one-time, $35.4 million land donation that boosted its collections during fiscal year 2008 above normal, says Nevin Kessler, NCSU’s vice chancellor for advancement. Excluding that donation, NCSU’s collections were down by 19 percent.
University officials are not surprised by the slow start to the fiscal year. The market downturn has limited what people are able to give.
Changes in philanthropic giving tend to lag behind the economy, says John Glier, president of Grenzebach, Glier and Associates, a Chicago fundraising consulting firm. That factor suggests that donations through the next six months also could fail to match 2008 numbers – and possibly be even worse than in the first six months.
Peter Vaughn, Duke’s executive director of alumni and development communications, says it’s quite possible the university will not raise as much in 2009 as it did in 2008, when it raised about $385 million. But large gifts, which could push Duke’s year-to-date fundraising from a percentage decline to a gain, tend to work on their own timeline, regardless of fundraising campaigns or the economy, he says.
A large gift could still be coming. Since September, single donations of $10 million or more to U.S. universities have totaled about $5 billion, Glier says.
Scott Ragland, UNC’s director of development communications, says there is little reason at this point to worry about the drop in donations, pointing to the results of a Chronicle of Higher Education survey regarding fundraising efforts at 33 universities engaged in multibilion-dollar fundraising campaigns.
According to the survey, 31 of those 33 universities raised a total of $423 million in the month of November. Only Johns Hopkins University raised more than UNC during that month. Johns Hopkins took in $67 million during the month, compared to $40.5 million for UNC.
Universities perpetually are raising money, but none of the Triangle’s big three are in official campaign mode at the moment – though UNC officials last fall mentioned the potential for one in the near future. Ragland says there currently are no plans for another campaign, though any new campaign’s goal would exceed the $2.38 billion raised through the end of 2007.
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