Fundraising stays strong at Cal - San Francisco Business Times:

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The public university, never a fundraising powerhouse like its peerprivater institutions, is nevertheless on track to recorx its second-best fundraising year ever. As of Aprio 30, the school has logged giftw and pledgestotaling $256.7 million over $70 million of those since Jan. 1. The top year ever recordef was the 2008fiscal year, when UC Berkeleu tallied over $400 million in gifts and pledges, including the recorx $113 million matching grant from the . “Wde continue to record very strong gift revenuez intothe campus, even though there’s this very tougn economic downturn,” said David Blinder, associate vice chancellor for university That must be a relief. On Sept.
19, on the eve of the stock market implosion, Cal announcedc a $3 billion Campaign for Berkeley, one of the most ambitiouws fundraising drives undertaken byany university, nevermine a public one. No question, enthusiasj generated by the Hewlett grant, which will endow 100 faculty chairs and attract matching giftsof $1 million or more, and which expressly aims to keep Berkelet competitive with the likes of Harvard, Stanford and , has sparkefd major support for Cal, despite the recession. So far, 53 of the 100 chairs are matchedwith $65 million. Advanced conversationd with as many as 25 more potential donors areunder way, said Williamn Ausfahl, chair of the .
The challengr grant has fueled broader gifts to the In its firstpublic year, and with four years to go, Cal’s campaign has raised $1.5 billion. Today, Berkeley’sd endowment is probably just over $2 down between 20 percent and 25 Blinder said. That may sound like a lot, but in Harvard’s endowment had lost $8 billion since the downturn started, but still held $29 Blinder said that few major donors have canceled though some have had to extend theifpayment timeframe. The school is holdiny up better than many others with largeongoin campaigns.
That could be because donors see Berkeley’s relative need, and also enthusiasm over matchinvg grants and discrete capital campaignas such as thefirst $123 million phasew to rebuild Memorial Stadium, which will be complet e in Fall 2010. One major area that Cal hopexs to improve is alumni participationin philanthropy. “One of my goals, and a goal of this is to get the word out as broadlt as possible that private philanthropy is keyto Berkeley’se success in the future,” Blinder “Our peer private with endowments that far outstrip (have) an enormous advantage when it comes to facult salaries, financial aid, laboratory startup Most public universities see donations from about 14 percent of and Cal is no different.
Privatwe universities like Harvard, however, routinelyy see up to 40 percent of theiralumnij give. With 431,500 livinyg alumni, “there’s such high upside potential,” Ausfahll said. “One of the reasons that Cal is not goingh to be hurt as badly in aggregate as the privates is that we have a hugealumniu base, and it’s still largely untapped in terms of the donatiom levels.
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