UMass fundraising falls behind its national peers

By Kristin Palpini
Staff Writer

Published on September 10, 2007

Fundraising by the University of Massachusetts' flagship campus is lagging behind that of its national peers - and there is no shortage of public and private finger-pointing to assign blame.

Some people point to alumni donor participation rates, the lack of a division 1-A football team or Chancellor John V. Lombardi's imminent departure as reasons for the university's inability to attract donations on a par with its peers.

Others note that UMass operates in the shadow of the state's internationally recognized private universities like Harvard and MIT. There is also a perception that because it's a state university, the state government is taking care of the university's finances.

While these factors may contribute to low fundraising numbers, the real culprit, say members of the UMass-Amherst Foundation, is time. UMass has only been a serious player in the fundraising game for about five years.

University officials are looking to UMass-Amherst alumni, a steadily growing group of graduates willing to hand the university cash every year, to turn the fundraising tide.

"The problem with UMass fundraising is, it really never was put in a place in any kind of structured environment - where it was in a place of importance in the overall activity of the campus - until the foundation," said Gordon N. Oakes Jr., a member of the foundation's board of directors.

"We've lost some time. We're 20-30 years behind other institutions," Oakes said. "We have to reach out to alumni."

The status of UMass' fundraising capacity was discussed Wednesday at a meeting of the UMass trustees' Development Committee. Topics included a review of latest fundraising figures and an update on the trustees' decision to merge the five campuses' donor and potential donor databases into a single system to track university alumni, parents and friends.

The UMass-Amherst Foundation, the nonprofit fundraising arm of the flagship campus, was established by Lombardi in 2002.

In fiscal 2007, the university raised $28.4 million, which is about $5 million less than what was collected in the previous fiscal year, according to a report compiled by the University of Massachusetts Foundation Inc., a systemwide fundraising group.

In 2006, UMass-Amherst was ranked 33rd in fundraising among the nation's 50 public universities, according to a study compiled by the Council for Aid to Education. The median amount raised by these universities with a similar student population was $48.4 million.

That year the leading recipient of voluntary donations to a public university was the University of North Carolina, which collected $236 million.

Rae Goldsmith, vice president for communications at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, a national association of fundraising professionals, said institutions that have been operating fundraising departments for decades are at a distinct advantage over schools that recently launched fundraising campaigns.

"Time is very, very, very important to a (fundraising) campaign," Goldsmith said. "Some of the people in this Massachusetts territory have been at this for many, many years.

It takes time to build fundraising capacity, and if you're entering late in the game - as most public universities are - then there is a lot of groundwork to be done."

When the national land-grant public university system was established, the schools did not have to stump for donations.

State coffers used to take care of the public schools. Private schools, however, were responsible for generating their own endowments from alumni donations. Funding for public higher education has taken a major shift in the past 30-50 years. Now, Massachusetts compensates about 30 percent of UMass-Amherst's annual operating budget.

Ideally, UMass should pull in about $40 million in donations this year and then increase the fundraising goal by about 20-30 percent in every following year, Oakes said.

UMass has not come close to meeting this guideline.

In its first year, the UMass-Amherst Foundation raised $36.1 million but has not reached or surpassed this amount since. The closest the foundation came to meeting the initial donation mark was in fiscal 2006, when donors committed $33.4 million to UMass.

"It's a moving goal, but it should be moving up and not down," Oakes said.

To compound the UMass problem, the flagship's fundraising progress may have hit a snag. Foundation members claim that donations to UMass-Amherst were on a tremendous upswing that was halted by Lombardi's announced departure.

In May, Lombardi said he would be leaving UMass. This announcement came alongside a systemwide chancellor shuffle and plans from the president's office to study top-level governance for the university system.

Although the president's office says Lombardi's decision to leave was reached mutually with President Jack M. Wilson, a host of people close to the chancellor have claimed Lombardi was edged out. Lombardi's departure has shaken donor confidence in UMass, vice president of the Foundation John A. Armstrong said. In June, Armstrong predicted the chancellor's leaving would lead to a withdrawal of $11 million in donor pledges to UMass.

Now, Armstrong, along with other foundation members and campus officials, say the university is likely to lose $14 million.