FUNDS WITHOUT ALUMS

Often lost amid the discussion of Harvard's wealth and massive endowment are the University's smaller schools, which are often forced to adopt innovative strategies in order to raise what would only be a drip into the University's colossal tubs.

While the small schools have been quite successful thus far in meeting their goals as part of their capital campaigns, missing funding goals can have consequences that larger schools could not imagine.

The University's three smallest schools--Education, Divinity and Design--often face completely different problems in their efforts to raise money, but they are united in the need to vigorously promote their ideologies rather than simply relying on the affluence and good will of their graduates.

"I think it is always a challenge to raise money in cases where alumni are not in careers which are very remunerative," says Thomas M. Reardon, vice-president for alumni affairs and development.

Small Schools, Small Pools

The University's endowment currently stands at $9.1 billion, according to the most recent Financial Report to the Board of Overseers.

In contrast, the Graduate School of Design's (GSD) endowment is a mere $127 million, a large amount for the average design school, but only 1.4 percent of the University's overall endowment.

The five-year capital campaign, which began in the spring of 1994, aims to raise $2.1 billion University-wide, but only $135 million is intended to be raised for the three smallest graduate schools combined.

The campaign goal for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) is $965 million; the goals of the smaller schools range from $30 million at the Design School to $60 million at the Education School. The Divinity School goal is $45 million.

Hence the $17.2 million gift that the GSD received from John M. Loeb '24 represents 57 percent of the school's goal; the same gift in the FAS would only be 1.7 percent of its goal. (A gift equivalent to 57 percent of the FAS goal would amount to $550 million.)

One of the largest private gifts ever to the Education School was a $2.5 million donation from Yashuhisa and Kimiko Tsuzuki to establish the Sada Tsuzuki professorship, which will focus on early childhood development.

In comparison, FAS has received several gifts in the tens of millions of dollars, funding marquee projects such as the Barker Center for the Humanities, the Maxwell-Dworkin computer science building, the restoration of Memorial Hall and the creation of Loker Commons.

Dudley F. Blodget, former dean of development at the GSE, said at the time of the Tsuzuki gift that the discrepancy between the larger and smaller schools is frustrating, but he points out that "you have to start somewhere."

Innovative Approaches

The three smaller schools differ from the other schools in that they have fewer alumni to solicit for funds and the professions for which they train--teaching, architecture and theology, for example--are generally not as lucrative as business, law or medicine.

This means that the schools cannot rely on the generosity of their alumni and instead must pursue other means.

"[At other schools] a lot of time is spent going to alumni who have done very well," said GSE Dean Jerome T. Murphy. "Reciprocity is not what we are about. [Our alumni] have nothing to give back."

Murphy says that instead the GSE tries to promote itself as a means to fixing the problems of America's schools. The school solicits donors based on specific issues addressed by the school, not on love for the school itself.

"It's hard to sell the school at large," Murphy says. "People are less interested in schools than problems or people. I try to get them to invest in early childhood education."

Susan Sherwin, associate dean for development in the Divinity School, says that there have been meetings in the past between the small schools to collaborate on strategies for fundraising, but ultimately that raising money at smaller schools happens "with difficulty."

All schools raise money through the traditional method of mass mailings and holding alumni events in Boston, across the United States and abroad. Divinity school graduates, for example, receive upwards of 8-10 mailings a year detailing current news in the school and asking for money.

But as always with the smaller schools, even normal interactions can take a bizarre twist.

Murphy himself donated $10,000 to the fund earlier this year in the hopes of sparking other faculty to give to the school, a gesture that was rewarded by an exceptionally tasteful thank you note from the development office.

The office prepared a large dry marker board with a message of thanks, punctuated at key intervals by candy bars which added a human touch to the message.

"It gave great Almond Joy to hear of your gift of 10 Grand to the Harvard Graduate School of Education's Capital Campaign," the sign reads. "Your Chunky generosity, along with Mounds of support from others, will launch the school into the Milky Way."

Dividing up the Pie

As is true with the capital campaign as a whole, the fact that the smaller schools are basically on target in reaching their goals does not guarantee that all aspects of the programs will raise the money that they need.

In the Divinity School, for example, funds are desperately needed for the renovation of the Andover-Harvard Theological Library. Other schools, including the FAS, have been plagued with difficulties in raising money for their libraries during this campaign.

Of the $45 million the Divinity School is trying to raise, $5.5 million, or 12 percent, is allotted to capital projects, a fund which was intended to cover the maintenance and renovation of the school as a whole, particularly Andover Hall, which, in addition to the library, includes many classrooms and offices.

But in January of last year, the faculty approved an $8-10 million plan to renovate the library, a project which Sherwin calls "an enormous challenge."

Furthermore, according to May 31 figures provided by the Divinity development office, only $550,000, or 2 percent of the money raised so far, is allocated for capital projects.

L. Charles Willard, librarian, faculty member and secretary of the faculty at the Divinity School, says that "if funds were in hand" there would be an addition of two floors to the newer building as well as a renovation of the interior of the entire library, including the addition of environmental controls, a change which library preservationists say is crucial to the protection of the books.

"You can spend $1,000 conserving a map, but if you put that map in a building where the environment reaches 90 degrees, it won't do a whole lot of good," says Janice Merrill-Oldham, Malloy-Rabinowitz preservation librarian.

Technological improvements are also needed. The library currently possesses 20 "dumb" Hollis terminals, which do not have network capability and will become unusable when the library system moves to Hollis II between November 1997 and January 1999, according to Willard.

While the library physically houses three Macintoshes and three PCs, they are not administratively part of the library, which currently only has one-and-a-half publicly accessible PCs.

"It is my belief and intention that the library continues to support the informational needs of faculty and students here," Willard says. "The nature of those needs will change dramatically in the near future and it will cost money to make that intention happen."

Not all schools have fared badly in their library fundraising.

For example, the Design School, which has a campaign that is 93 percent complete, has raised more than enough money for the library.

GSD Librarian Hinda Sklar says more money is needed to endow books so more unrestricted funds can be devoted to areas like technology that are harder to raise money for. On the whole, she says the library is in good condition.

"This is probably the best design library in the country," Sklar says.

Differing Difficulties

One of the most interesting aspects of the difficulties of small school fundraising is that the schools' financial holes often come in different places.

In contrast, with its library difficulties, the Divinity School has done very well at raising money for financial aid, as it has currently raised 62 percent of its $32,950,000 goal for endowment, and a significant portion of that money is earmarked for aiding students.

"We tend to draw from Asia and Africa, areas which do not have a lot of wealth, allowing us to maintain our diversity," Gardner says.

The average grant in the office is half of the $14,700 tuition, and many receive greater funding, with students from poorer regions often receiving full tuition in addition to a $5,900 stipend for housing and other essentials in Cambridge. Ninety percent of Divinity School students receive some form of aid, Gardner says.

This success with funds for financial aid is not mirrored at the Education School, which has much trouble raising money for the program.

Only 40 percent of Education School students receive financial aid. Admission Office Director Roland Hence points out that the yield at the school is still more than 70 percent in most programs, leading him to conclude that most students are simply shouldering the financial burden themselves.

In addition, Hence says that the school sometimes cannot attract top students because some other schools can offer a full four-year scholarship to their students.

The GSE has currently raised only $18 million of its $40 million goal for endowed monies, which will be split between endowed chairs and financial aid, but has raised more than $23 million of its $20 million goal for current use.

Murphy attributes the school's difficulties in raising money for endowment to the perception of the school as a vehicle for change.

"People are interested in the School of Education not as an end but as a means to the end," Murphy says.

Reardon says it is difficult to raise money for general endowment and financial aid when schools must rely more heavily on non-alumni for funds.

"I think it can be because generally people who are non-alumni come with particular programmatic orientation--they tend to be more directed than the average alumni," Reardon says.

Non-Campaign Money

The funds raised in the University-wide capital campaign are not the only monies raised by the schools in a given year.

In the GSE, for example, approximately $24 million has been raised this year, but the $12 million gift the school received from the Department of Education to establish the National Center for Adult Literacy and Learning does not count toward the campaign because it is a federal grant, according to sponsored research systems administrator Linda Delauri.

Other large grants, such as the $3.8 million Annenberg National Rural Challenge Fund that the GSE received this year, can only count if they fall into one of the three areas for which the school is actively campaigning.

Philosophizing for Funds

There are no Barkers or Ballmers lining up to fund new buildings at Harvard's smaller schools, and the nostalgic fervor that fuels FAS fundraising fails to motivate their alumni.

Even the $17 million gift to the GSD from the Loeb family, some of Harvard's oldest boosters, stemmed more from a love for the University and an interest in design than any direct affiliation with the particular school.

Because most large gifts to Harvard's smallest three schools come from outside donors with specific agendas, the schools have been forced to craft creative strategies to make sure the most important agenda is followed: their own.

In order to make sure that particular projects are funded, such as upkeep of libraries or expansion of financial aid funds, the development offices of these schools cannot rest on the Harvard name alone to draw donors but must constantly promote their educational philosophies.

At a University where the Law School completed its $175 million campaign before the campaign started, the Design, Divinity and Education schools find themselves thus pressed not only to expand but also at times to maintain the status quo.