In a time of tight state budgets, a poor economy and the ever-increasing costs of education, institutions are turning toward development as a major way of attracting private donations to compliment state and tuition funding.
Leslie Elgood, director of University Development and president of the UNM Foundation, said once accounting totals are completed later this month, she expects the foundation and its development offices to have raised more than $37 million, a new record for the foundation.
That money, which came from private donors and foundations, allows college and school deans to be more responsive and dynamic to institutional needs. But, it doesn’t just fall into their laps.
Generating more than $37 million requires a massive amount of work deans and administrators are unable to perform due to their main duties of managing their respective academic departments.
Instead, administrators turn to an increasingly popular device most people associate with politicians and nonprofit organization — fund raising.
That is where development and development officers come into play.
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Development offices at
public universities
A development office’s role at a public university and its colleges and schools is usually two-fold.
First, employees working within the office solicit philanthropists who may be interested in donating money or materials.
“Part of our jobs as fund-raisers is to present opportunities to major donors,” said Sara McClure, major gifts manager at the UNM Foundation. McClure said most major contributions from private donors come at the hands of development office solicitations.
Officers work with donors to arrange how and where donations will be allocated.
“State universities are having to become more creative in how they finance things,” said Jeff Hale, director of development for the College of Education.
“Development plays a small but increasingly important role at UNM.”
Another purpose development offices serve is assisting with alumni relations.
Some of the most generous contributors to the School of Law’s Development Office are from alumni, said Herb Wright, director of development and alumni affairs at the School of Law.
In addition to playing multiple roles as fundraisers and as alumni relations representatives, development officers work for both their individual offices and for the UNM Foundation.
The UNM Foundation
“The foundation is the area of the University that raises and accounts for all private donations,” McClure said.
The foundation’s principal purpose is to account for, raise and receive funds, acknowledge donors and ensure that money given by donors is properly distributed.
The foundation’s staff also assists the more than 20 campus development offices with fundraising and communicating and coordinating with other officers.
Each of the directors of development on campus reports to an individual dean and to Elgood, the foundation’s president.
A large majority of the more than $37 million expected to be raised in the last fiscal year will be spent this fiscal year. However, Elgood said about six or seven million of those dollars will go into the Consolidated Investment Fund.
This has been “truly a University-wide development year,” Elgood said. “A successful year for fundraising at UNM.”
UNM colleges and schools’ funding success
Elgood said no one school or college was the most successful in raising funds this year. Instead, she added, all development offices worked to raise a massive amount of funds for the University and its constituents.
Development offices received both money and what are typically called “in kind” gifts that can be anything from real estate and artwork to computer equipment and machinery.
Much like cash donations, donors decide what will happen to “in kind” gifts. For example, some donors stipulate that artwork can be used however the University or specific college sees fit.
This year, Hewlett-Packard donated about $500,000 in both money and “in kind” gifts to the College of Education. The major gift constituted an entire mobile classroom containing laptop computers.
The College of Education had set a fundraising goal of $650,000 before the fiscal year. At the end of the fiscal year, the college was expecting a total of more than $1.3 million.
“We’ve been able to tap into these veins of giving,” Hale said. “I think we’re at the beginning of a wave of major successes.”
Hale said that the dean of the College of Education would place a high emphasis on using a portion of that money to provide more scholarship opportunities for students.
Funds are not only allocated toward scholarships and computers.
Development officers for the School of Architecture and Planning and the School of Law are currently raising funds for a capital campaign. The purpose of each of the capital campaigns is to raise funds for the construction or the renovation of buildings, said Elgood.
Wright, director of development and alumni affairs at the School of Law, said the development office has raised close to $3 million during the past two years.
Although all development offices at UNM’s schools and colleges enjoyed a successful year in raising funds, Elgood said she was pleased with the School of Law and the School of Architecture and Planning’s efforts to raise capital campaign funds.
“Both of these schools did very well,” Elgood said.
