Millionaire Leaders Key to Campaign

It isn't always cheap to serve your alma mater.

The five-year, $350-million Harvard Campaign has 23 men and women on its executive committee. Twenty-one of them, including President Bok, gave more than $100,000 each to the Campaign--in fact, 14 of the committee members parted with $1 million or more to help out the University.

That's not a coincidence.

Gifts

One of the biggest reasons for the historic success of the fund drive--which raised $356 million for Harvard--was the campaign's strategy of involving potential major donors in the leadership of the drive.

The program, which ended December 31 with more than 57,000 donations, will help shore up inflation-croded faculty salaries and student financial aid, as well as finance a laundry list of renovations around the University.

In assembling volunteer leadership for a drive like the Harvard Campaign, "you would be looking for people who were generous" to lead it, explains Director of Major Gifts William H. Boardman. "The most effective fundraisers are people who have already given."

The 21 large gifts provided by the executive committee were among some 470 gifts of more than $100,000 to the drive. In fact, according to Boardman, some 62 percent of the total pledges came from less than I percent of the 57,000 donors. As of Monday, donors had paid up 71.9 percent of the total pledged, according to campaign spokesman David W. Johnson '68.

When the going got rough last January and donations began to slow, the 23 members of the executive committee and four other wealthy alumni came up with an additional $25 million, in the form of a 'challenge fund.'

Under the ground rules of the challenge, which has also been used successfully at Dartmouth and Princeton, the 27 benefactors would match every two dollars of new giving with a dollar of their own. At the time of the fund's announcement, the campaign total stood at just over $275 million, meaning that the rest of Harvard's friends had to come up with $50 million in 11 months.

They did, although things got very close near the end. With just 80 days left in the drive, the campaign still needed to rustle up $22 million--a staggering $250,000 a day.

Again, it was major donors--officially classified as giving $100,000 and up--who care through for Harvard. Of course, many of those gifts, explains Vice President for Alumni Affairs and Development Fred L. Glimp '50, had been in the works for a while "I don't think we had any rabbits in the hat It was just a lot of hard work," says Glimp, noting that a big gift almost always has a lengthy "gestation period" between the time a prospective donor is first contacted and when he ultimately signs the check.

While the breakdowns for each goal the campaign sought to meet are still being tabulated, according to Director of University Development Thomas M. Reardon, it is clear that the campaign has strengthened Harvard in a variety of areas It has:

* increased the student financial aid endowment by $45 million.

* increased the endowment for professors' salaries by $65 million

* endowed at least 40 full professors' chairs and at least 19 junior faculty chairs

* built a new track and tennis facility, thanks largely to a $2 million gift from Kidder. Peabody chairman Albert H. Gordon '23

* bought a new roof for Widener library and paid for other major renovations throughout the library system

* revamped the biochemistry building, mostly from a $5 million gift from the Fairchild Foundation

* helped get the massive House renovation project underway.

* initiated the creation of a society of international fellows, which would host established experts as well as young professors for study in international relations. New Jersey industrialist Dr. Ira Kukin, who in 1951 got a doctorate in chemistry from Harvard, gave $5 million in October toward the new program, which officials said will need some additional funds to get off the ground.

After two years of planning and advance solicitation of $52 million--including 18 gifts above $1 million--the campaign was officially kicked off in October of 1979. It was Harvard's first major fundraising drive since 1960, when the $82.5 million Program for Harvard College rolled to a successful conclusion.

While the Program sought to make major additions to Harvard, both structurally and academically, Harvard Campaign organizers focused on preserving and improving what was already in place.

By 1979 it was clear that inflation had ravaged the University in a variety of ways. For instance, in 1964 the interest on the endowment of a professor paid for his salary and left the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) with an additional $5000 to play with. But by 1979, the same professor was costing the University all of his endowment income, as well as another $3000 from the FAS budget.

Moreover, Harvard officials were embarassed that while the University enjoyed a $1.7 billion endowment (now $2.324 billion), actual endowment per student was less than Yale, Princeton or Wellesley--even less than at the elite St. Paul's School in Concord, N. H.

The campaign's original $250 million goal, though huge, was not unprecedented in the 1970s: Stanford raised $300 million, the University of Chicago $280 million, and the University of Pennsylvania $255 million. Yale ran a $370 million drive that needed two extra years to meet its goal.

Still, the Harvard Campaign would be special in that it would focus almost exclusively on the College and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. The big drives at other schools had involved all their graduate schools. Some $230 million of the drive would go to FAS, with another $20 million to start up programs of professional training for students at the Design School, the Education School, the Kennedy School, the Education School, the Kennedy School of Government and the School of Public Health who wanted to pursue careers in public service.

After just 18 months, the $250 million drive was already past its halfway mark. After six months of disuscussions the campaign leadership decided to boost the goal by $100 million. In his announcement of the increase at 1982 Commencement. Robert G. Stone Jr. '45, one of three national co-chairmen, argued that the additional chunk was needed to get the job done right.

Gordon says he feels that 1982 decision to boost the goal was, in and of itself, a major reason that the campaign succeeded. "The easiest thing to do would have been to take the $250 million and call it a day," says Gordon. "That showed great courage, and gave a big boost to the alumni."

By 1984 the campaign was scrambling to make good on its decision to go for the additional $100 million and, according to Reardon, "there was concern that we had exhausted the outer limits of the alumni's capacity."

The propitious establishment of the challenge fund by the top names in the drive, says Glimp, was critical. "It made it really clear that [the campaign's leadership] really believe in the thing." Without the challenge, the drive would have ended up with no more than $330 million.

The campaign was also blessed in the closing months with two huge gifts--the $5 million Kukin gift for the society of international fellows, and a $2 million gift from retired Michigan lumberman John W. Blodgett '23, who had already lent his name--and millions of dollars--to the Blodgett Pool.

Reardon says is not entirely clear yet which of the items on the campaign's shopping list have been met--although support seems heavier than expected for endowed professorships, scholarships and the library system and probably too light for the House renovations.

But, says spokesman Johnson, many benefactors who gave money in the last year of the drive--including the 27 behind the $25 million challenge fund--did not designate where they wanted the gifts to go. Many of them will be meeting with Reardon in the coming weeks to discuss areas where their money is needed, he adds