DRAFT
 
FRIEND AND FUND RAISING TASK FORCE

 

E X E C U T I V E   S U M M A R Y

 

The Friend and Fund Raising Task force held two meetings, one on campus and one in Harlingen to discuss the need for dramatic growth in private sector funding for  UTB/TSC over the next 20 years.    The committee asked one central question:  If we are to  grow to a population of 30,000 students by 2020, what should the endowments for such a school be?  How many endowed chairs does a well-funded university have?  How many endowed scholarships should we have?  The simple answer to these questions is to use an established rule of thumb often cited in the development world.  A well-funded university endowment should have collective investment capital of $10,000 per student.  In our case, a projected student body of 30,000 would require us to have a $300 million endowment by 2020. 

 

Our task force found the goal sobering because we have only a $10 million endowment now.  Yet as we came to realize that the most common capital campaign for universities these days is $100 million, we concluded that our goal, like most good goals, is challenging and demanding at every level, but not unachievable.  Consequently, the work of the commission focused on identifying the following funding mechanisms by which the $300 million goal could ultimately be realized. 

 

  1. The UTB/TSC development office must be reorganized and expanded.  Although the current staff has performed admirably with limited resources over the past decade, it is most accurate to say that the development office has been focused more on special events than fundraising.  True, this is a legitimate part of donor cultivation, but if we are to achieve our goal of $300 million, development will have to focus unabashedly on raising money.  Consequently, we need to add professional staff in the areas of planned giving, alumni development, corporate relations, foundation relations, capital campaigns and special events.

 

  1. We should continue to grow sponsored programs aggressively because strong research programs attract philanthropic dollars.  Institutions that are exemplary citizens and help to solve communal problems enhance their credibility, which attracts philanthropists who wish to join the work. 

 

  1. The university should identify a simple and clear message of institutional values that should be communicated with great frequency to all university constituencies.  Everything that we stand for should be communicated in all that we do. 

 

  1. Advertising and promotion of the university’s most positive image should be enhanced.  This does not mean, however, that more television spots should be purchased.  It may be that strategic scholarships are the best form of advertising.

 

 

  1. DRAFT
     
    The UTB/TSC alumni must be cultivated.  UTB/TSC has tens of thousands of graduates, but only one thousand are officially registered as alumni.  A concerted campaign should be undertaken to bring a much greater percentage of our graduates into the fold.  Additionally, UTB/TSC alumni should be born at freshman orientation.  All through the undergraduate years, our students should be courted as future alumni.  The ethic of future responsibility to their alma mater should be a common value. 

 

  1. In the next twenty years, more than a trillion dollars of wealth will be transferred from one generation to the next.  This will be the largest intergenerational transfer of capital in history.   Leading universities are successful at convincing their alumni and friends to include their university in their wills.  This is a beneficent reciprocal arrangement since a well conceived endowed chair or scholarship can continue, in some way, a donor’s life work.  We need a planned giving expert to help UTB/TSC’s alumni and friends to structure such gifts.  

 

  1. Local corporate philanthropy has been narrow and shallow, not because local corporations are uncaring, but because they have not been asked for their help.  We need to hire a corporate relations professional to cultivate these local (and national relationships) systematically.  We need not only to pursue the traditional mechanisms of corporate philanthropy, but we need also to do what businesses themselves do – develop new products to empower their participation in new ways.  “Timeships” as opposed to scholarships is one such example. 

 

  1. Foundations have been generally supportive of UTB/TSC, but not evenly.  If we wish to succeed in our goal, a wide array of foundations must embrace our mission.  It is time to have a major capital campaign for the university, something on the order of $100 million.  Foundations are uniquely vital to the success of such campaigns.  To that end, a consulting group ought to be hired to do an assessment of institutional capacity and to make recommendations about how UTB/TSC’s development operations ought to be structured and funded.

 

 

These are the preliminary recommendations of our committee.  We plan to meet once more to refine and supplement these general suggestions with ones that are supported by documented evidence and strategic specificity.