THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, September 18, 1995 TAG: 9509180063
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
The University of Virginia is preparing to launch a $700 million fund-raising drive, billed as the largest campaign based on the number of alumni ever tackled by a public university in the country.
In recent years, fund-raising drives to build endowments, finance new facilities, create scholarships and bolster faculty salaries have become a fact of life for Virginia's colleges and universities in need of more money.
And hardly do schools finish a campaign before they're plotting the next one, said Lynn Clapham, Hampden-Sydney College's vice president for institutional advancement.
``It's serialized fund raising,'' Clapham said.
``It goes on and on and on.''
The University of Virginia fund-raising campaign officially opens in three weeks. The school already has nearly $300 million in hand, including 55 gifts of a minimum $1 million.
The school is going all out to gain attention. Four thousand invitations have been delivered to the power brokers at many of the country's corporations, partnerships and philanthropic foundations. The school will play host to private cocktail parties, dinners and luncheons wrapped around a series of public seminars, speeches and tours billed as a way for guests to sample campus life.
School officials are quick to note that the only big item for the gala being paid out of development funds, which are privately derived, is the $150,000 tent rental. Other costs are being picked up by the festivities' socially prominent volunteers, they said.
Other schools are engaging in high-profile fund-raisers as well. At the Hotel Roanoke this past weekend, Virginia Tech wined and dined 400 alumni at a black-tie fete marking the kickoff of a $250 million capital campaign.
For private colleges, campaigns have long been a matter of survival. Hampden-Sydney, currently in a $55 million drive, traces its first appeal to 1777 when James Madison pitched a $2,000 lottery at $5 a chance to raise $28,000.
But it's only been in recent decades that public universities nationally have turned to the private sector, with their efforts escalating as state money has declined.
So inexperienced were Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia in launching their first campaigns in the 1980s that their then seemingly huge goals of $50 million and $90 million paled in comparison to the $118 million and $137 million, respectively, that they brought in.
These days, with campaigns routine, competition for philanthrophic dollars is intense. The bulk of money raised comes from a handful of donors.
Schools say they must spend money to raise money. The University of Virginia, which has tripled its number of fund-raising officers to 75, expects to spend about $70 million over the course of the five-year campaign, said Robert Sweeney, the school's vice president of development.
Just getting prospective donors to show up for fund-raising events is prompting schools to put on ever more extravagant campaign events.
``The bar is raised higher every time somebody does one,'' said Robert B. Lambeth Jr., president of Virginia's Council of Independent Colleges. ``You have to do something more creative. It's a major production . . . like a political campaign.'' by CNB