UVa extends funding campaign, seeking the full $3 billion

By the end of 2011, the Campaign for the University of Virginia had raised roughly $2.6 billion since its 2004 kickoff.

That’s a lot of money, but $400 million less than UVa had set as its goal, which senior vice president for development and public affairs Robert D. Sweeney said was the largest such campaign ever announced when officials kicked it off. Of course, the UVa folks “called their shot,” so to speak, before the economy tanked.

The campaign was started under former President John T. Casteen III. The intended completion date passed during the tenure of current President Teresa A. Sullivan, and now, they’re extending the campaign until the $3 billion mark is reached.

The Board of Visitors and the campaign executive committee support the move, Sweeney said.

“All of them were adamant that we stay the course until $3 billion,” Sweeney said.

“What we saw was a huge dive in giving when the recession hit, 2008, ’09, and so institutions that were active campaigns when that hit were likely to have set their goals beforehand, and so they got hit pretty hard,” said Rae Goldsmith, vice president of advancement resources for the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.

Giving has rebounded nationally, she said, but not to its former level.

And institutions are again starting to launch what Goldsmith called “mega-campaigns,” defined as those with goals of $1 billion plus.

That $3 billion figure, rather than the deadline, has served as a rallying point, he said. For comparison, in 2010, UVa’s entire endowment was roughly $3.9 billion, making it 19th in the country in size, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers. By May 2011, it had rebounded to $5.24 billion or so.

Right now, university officials are in negotiations with two potential donors at the $100-million level, Sweeney said.

“We are committed right now to reach $3 billion, however long that takes,” Sweeney said. “I would say that, best-case scenario, if we were to get one of these nine-figure gifts, … would be six months. The most likely scenario would be a year.”

Over the eight-year campaign, officials needed to pull in an average of about $31 million each month. In the end, they got $27 million or so, in an average month.

“When Lehman [Brothers] went down in ’08, we experienced the most dramatic kind of a downturn in philanthropy that I have seen during my 38 years in higher education,” Sweeney said.

The worst of the trough ran until right after Thanksgiving 2010. In that period, fundraising average $18 million per month.

“For the university of Virginia, $3 billion was an extraordinary challenge for us,” Sweeney said.

He added, “We were pushing ourselves even if the economy was working on all eight cylinders.”

Sweeney said he thinks the relentless work of fundraising officials during the worst of the slump has paid off since. He said donors appreciate that loyalty.