Last year at Commencement, a 50th reunion gift from the Class of 1945 put Brown's comprehensive campaign over its $450-million goal. But President Gregorian and campaign leaders barely paused to celebrate. Instead, they extended the campaign for six months (through June 1996) and announced a new $20-million "Challenge to the Finish" in hopes of fully funding all the campaign priorities.
A year later, as the campaign total passed the $510-million mark, the George St. Journal spoke with Ann W. Caldwell, vice president for development, about the campaign, about Brown, and about how things have changed.
When the campaign began in 1990, Brown made a clear statement about what it needed to accomplish. Did the campaign meet those needs?
Many very large campaigns such as ours succeed in the overall dollar goals but fail to fund many individual priorities that make up the campaign total. By the time our campaign is finished - and there is still a month left - most of the campaign priorities will have been fully funded or almost so. It is highly unusual to have funded so many of the original priorities. We could have declared victory and gone home a year ago when we passed the overall goal, but the president and the challengers were determined to finish strong across the board. We have tried to be very disciplined in this final year, soliciting gifts that were aimed squarely at the remaining priorities. The Challenge to the Finish has made a tremendous difference by keeping those priorities front and center.
The campaign also had non-dollar goals, especially the goal of widening the circle of Brown's support. How did the campaign fare in that department?
When we finish this campaign, we will have had more than 50,000 individual gifts or pledges from alumni, parents, friends, corporations and foundations. That is the largest base of donor support the University has ever had and is the most important building block for the future.
Our growing international base will be another building block. Through the travel of the president and the work of volunteers around the world, we have begun to develop new centers of support. We now have Brown clubs in several countries, a parents council in Korea and so forth. But it's not just about raising money. These new international donors are helping to broaden and enrich the University by supporting areas that are particularly important to them. Some of the new faculty positions in Asian studies or Middle East history are expressions of Brown's growing international base of support.
Will the reunion classes see evidence of the campaign?
To the extent that a campaign focuses on endowment, the results seem invisible. But endowment is reflected in the people who make Brown the institution it is. We have new professorships, graduate fellowships, undergraduate scholarships - most of which carry a donor's name in perpetuity. Those new endowments guarantee that Brown's academic and intellectual life will continue to thrive. Is it visible? No, but there's a growing sense of stability and a new appreciation of philanthropy on campus.
The only obvious visible evidence would be new buildings. Reunion classes and graduates won't see much at Commencement, but as soon as they leave we'll begin clearing ground at Thayer and George for the construction of the MacMillan sciences building. That will begin to loom as the largest visible physical monument to this campaign.
Has the campaign changed the Development Office?
I hope we are increasingly professional in our work, that we know our alumni and parents better and in larger numbers than before this campaign, and that we've raised our sights internally as well as externally with regard to the level of support Brown deserves.
We have begun to put a far higher premium on stewardship as the campaign ends, particularly in our outreach to donors. Donors who have made an investment in Brown want to know - deserve to know - how their gifts are supporting the University's mission and that their gifts are achieving their intended purposes. The better job we do in stewarding their gifts, the more likely they are to continue to be generous.
Much of the giving in the '90s - individual, corporate, even foundation giving - has been directed toward causes rather than institutions. Brown's commitment to outreach, national service and a consortia approach to issues has brought support from a broader range of donors. We are less constrained than some of our peer institutions in offering links between the work of our faculty and service to the nation. School reform, environmental science, international affairs - Brown provides donors with many opportunities to support positive change in areas that are on the giving agenda of many.
This campaign was also "for the rising generation" of supporters. Has a new generation arrived?
Brown is a very different place than it was during the last campaign. It has grown in so many ways and now has a much broader national and international scope. Originally, much of that growth and change came about through the philanthropy and the personal involvement of a few giants like Tom Watson and Dick Salomon, whose names will be part of this University forever. It's been interesting and heartening to observe how Brown's base of support has grown and changed along with the University. In this campaign, for example, we had many individuals come forward and make gifts of more than $1 million. That hasn't happened before. I take it as an expression of confidence in the University, as evidence that new and succeeding generations of philanthropists have helped develop an institution that is worthy of support. Tom Watson and Dick Salomon would approve.