U. targets seniors for fundraising

With the University in the middle of its 68th Annual Giving fundraising drive, campaign officials are using stories like Lewis’ to highlight the importance of starting donating to Princeton early, regardless of the size of one’s first contribution.

“Annual Giving provides a way for every single graduate, every single parent and every single friend to be a part of this great campaign,” President Tilghman said in an interview earlier this month, referring to the University’s “Aspire” capital campaign, the public phase of which began in November.

“It’s the great leveler. Whether you are in your first job after graduation or whether you’re celebrating your 50th reunion, Annual Giving is a way to contribute what it is you’re capable of providing,” she said, “so it’s a very democratic way of contributing to the campaign.”

This year, Annual Giving efforts for the Class of 2008 are headed by seniors Jonathan Fernandez, Grant Gittlin and Jennifer Smith. The three co-chairs are charged with overseeing an extensive effort to reach each of their classmates before Commencement.

“Our goal is to have a conversation with every member of the senior class about Annual Giving,” Smith said in an e-mail.

How it begins

To reach their goal, each co-chair has eight to 10 captains, who in turn sign up eight to 10 solicitors. Each solicitor is responsible for approaching eight to 10 fellow seniors.

Members of the University community are contacted throughout the academic year by friends, classmates and regional representatives who volunteer to approach alumni about making a contribution. Members of the campaign first approach current students during the spring of their senior year.

National Chair of Annual Giving Rajiv Vinnakota ’93 said in an e-mail that Annual Giving is a volunteer-driven effort at every step of the process.

“Annual Giving has a strong sense of continuity and gratitude,” he said, citing the importance of “each generation of Princetonians taking active responsibility for preserving the legacy they received from the previous generation and passing it on to the next in a strengthened condition.”

Vinnakota added that at current levels of overall Annual Giving donations, the drive provides the equivalent of the investment income of $1 billion in endowment.

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Smith said she expects a positive response from her classmates. “I think students are eager to give,” she said. “They see it as a way of giving back to Princeton and maintaining a lasting connection with this place after graduation.”

What Annual Giving provides

First conducted during the 1940-41 academic year, Annual Giving campaigns provide the University with the largest source of unconstrained and unrestricted funds to spend as it sees fit. Because much of the University’s annual budget and endowment are funded through restricted gifts, administrators rely on Annual Giving to provide funding for newly created programs.

“Annual Giving is an absolutely critical ingredient to our operating budget,” Tilghman said. “[It] is a very significant amount of money that, at the beginning of every operating-budget year, you could really allocate to absolutely anything you want.”

Projects partially funded by Annual Giving include everything from financial-aid grants and independent-work funding to Frist late meals and campus computer clusters.

“The contributions that alumni make through Annual Giving have tangible, immediate effects on everyday aspects of campus life that are necessary for Princeton’s operation,” Smith said.

Last academic year, roughly 58 percent of alumni contributed a total of more than $49 million to the Annual Giving drive. This year, officials hope that 60 percent of alumni will participate in an effort to raise $52 million.

According to the University’s development website, the campaign has raised $26 million and received contributions from about 30 percent of alumni.

Annual Giving and ‘Aspire’

For the next five years, Annual Giving will be part of the University’s $1.75 billion “Aspire” capital campaign, and officials are seeking to raise $250 million through Annual Giving before the capital campaign ends with Reunions 2012. Development officials expect 80 percent of alumni to contribute to the capital campaign. Of that group, 90 percent will contribute through Annual Giving.

The University hopes that, in instilling in graduates a habit of giving what they can afford back to the University early on, alumni will be more likely to continue to donate.

Bobbie Strand, a partner at Bentz Whaley Flessner Consultants, a consulting firm that specializes in capital campaigns, said that it takes a wide spectrum of support to make a university work.

“Every gift, whether it’s $1,000 or $100 million, is a sign of support,” she said. “And if it is relative to that person’s capacity to give, then I’d say that $1,000 gift is just as important.”

“It’s not going to help you reach your goal, but it’s important to have a wide range of donors give at capacity,” she explained.

Strand echoed campaign officials, saying that it’s important to get alumni involved in Annual Giving early in their post-college lives.

“If you make a gift at the level you can afford, that’s extremely meaningful for a student to believe that much in Princeton University,” she said. “In 30 or 40 years, you’ll be much more interested in giving that $101 million,” said Stand, referring to Lewis’ record-breaking gift in 2006 to support the creative and performing arts.

“I would never say that a small gift is not important because it’s building that relationship,” she explained. “If you don’t build those relationships today, you may not have their interest when the day comes that they can give those $101 million donations.”

Vice President for Development Brian McDonald ’83 cited those small contributions as essential to the University’s success.

“Princeton wouldn’t be Princeton if we only relied on the small number of our most-able donors,” McDonald said. “The gifts at what people would consider to be modest levels really make a difference.”

Why give to Princeton?

Given the University’s endowment, which had a value of $15.8 billion as of last June, officials said some alumni question Princeton’s need for new financial resources when deciding between the University, less-wealthy institutions and charities.

“We don’t argue that their gifts to other organizations and to other causes are less important than they would be to Princeton,” McDonald said. “We don’t view ourselves as competing with other very worthy causes. In fact, we take enormous pride that so many of our alumni are generous with their time and resources to so many causes.”

Tilghman agreed. “I never frame that discussion as an either-or discussion because we’re so incredibly proud of the ways our alumni and parents contribute to their community,” she said. “So we say, ‘Of course you should contribute to the local homeless shelter or the local ballet company, but we think there is an equally compelling reason to contribute to Princeton.’ ”

She also highlighted a specific example of when Annual Giving donations proved crucial to the University’s operation.

“The time when Annual Giving literally saved the day was in 2001 after we instituted the new financial aid policy,” she said. “Suddenly the number of students on financial aid made this big jump. We hadn’t budgeted for that; we thought it would be a gradual increase over time. And Annual Giving was really used in those critical years before we could raise new endowments for financial aid and gradually build that into the operating budget.”

Gittlin noted that student tuition covers only a fraction of the $100,000 the University spends on every student each year. He said that in many cases, Annual Giving helps close that gap.

Vinnakota said that wide alumni participation in Annual Giving is needed to ensure that Princeton continues to grow and thrive in the future.

“The philosophical underpinning of [Annual Giving] is that all of us share a responsibility for the overall quality of the University,” he said. “If we don’t attend first to the vigor of the institution broadly, then individual programs will begin to decline as the quality of students and faculty becomes more difficult to sustain on a consistent basis.”