Further Delay in Fund Drive Mulled

The University is considering a further delay in its multi-billion-dollar capital campaign in order to refocus this fundraising effort on Harvard’s expansion into Allston, the vice president for alumni affairs and development, Donella M. Rapier, said yesterday.

University administrators had previously hoped to avoid making Allston a major part of their current campaign, which entered a “quiet phase” at the start of 2004. The campaign’s public launch was already pushed back in the wake of faculty uproar over University President Lawrence H. Summers.

A further delay, described as almost certain by two major Harvard donors who did not wish to be identified, would give Allston a more prominent role in the University’s fundraising efforts over the next decade, as Harvard’s plans for expansion there begin to solidify.

Past timetables for the campaign, once set to launch publicly in 2006 or 2007, have proven overly optimistic. In an interview yesterday, Rapier said that a 2007 launch was “not likely,” pointing instead to 2008 or beyond.

“Is it likely to be later than some of us in the Development Office might have liked? Probably,” she said.

The University has never set an official date for the public launch of the campaign, likely to be the largest ever in higher education, and the parameters of the “quiet phase” have been left intentionally flexible. Still, the campaign appears stymied by factors on and off campus, including academic planning, an influx of new leadership at Harvard’s graduate schools, and a projected downturn in the economy.

“We will make sure that when we plan for a public date,” Rapier said, “it will be the right time, given all of the factors.”

Previous plans for the campaign, described by administrators over the past two years, called for an emphasis on academic programs across the University, while leaving direct fundraising for Allston to a later campaign. But as other selling points, including the College’s much-hyped Curricular Review, have failed to inspire donors, Allston has become the University’s best sales pitch.

“Allston has the ability to really motivate alumni to give,” said a major alumni donor who has been closely involved with plans for the campaign. “Everything else is weak right now. You can’t ask people to donate their money to a Curricular Review that barely even exists.”

Progress on the Review, which aimed to revamp Harvard’s undergraduate education, ground to a halt last semester as the Faculty of Arts and Sciences turned its attention to discontent over Summers’ leadership.

The donor, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to maintain his relationship with the Development Office, said the University could benefit from pushing back the campaign’s public launch.

“It’s a wise move,” he said. “You should only launch a campaign like this when you feel you’re strong enough to do it.”

Rapier, who would not call the timetable change a delay, said yesterday that Harvard will launch the campaign’s public phase “when the timing is right.”

But some public statements from Harvard officials have indicated a delay in the campaign’s kick-off.

In February 2004, Rapier said she expected a public launch in two to three years.

But the projected start date loomed the same distance away even as time passed. In an e-mail to The Crimson in June, 16 months later, Rapier wrote that Harvard is “on track for an expected launch within the next two to three years.”

Rapier reiterated that projection in an interview yesterday.

“Two to three years is the standard response right now,” the major donor said. “It’s been two to three years for two to three years now.”

—Staff writer Nicholas M. Ciarelli can be reached at ciarelli@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Zachary M. Seward can be reached at seward@fas.harvard.edu.