1. Diverse Education – Cited, William Allan Kritsonis, PhD & Monica G. Williams
From Diverse Online
Feature Stories
A FUNDRAISING BLUEPRINT
By Peter Galuszka
May 1, 2008, 12:53
Howard University sets the bar high for its largest ever capital campaign, and now plans to share the
secrets of its success with fellow HBCUs.
In the fall of 2001, top administrators and trustees from Howard
University secluded themselves at a retreat at the posh Lansdowne
Resort in the rolling Virginia countryside near Washington to discuss
the future of their school. There they planted the seeds of what was
to become the most successful fundraising campaign ever
undertaken by a historically Black university.
For Howard President H. Patrick Swygert, the campaign was the
latest in a series of fundraising efforts that he had started since 1995
when he took over as president. At the time, he recalls, “It was clear
we needed a change. Only 4 to 5 percent of the alumni were
participating. About 90 percent didn’t participate at all.”
From left, President of Howard University, H.
Patrick Swygert, Richard D. Parsons, The brainstorming at the Lansdowne retreat created an innovative,
chairman of the Board of Trustees’ multifaceted and complex campaign that ended up seeing the school
Development Committee, and former board reach its goal of $250 million early and then surpass it by $22 million.
chairman and current trustee Frank Savage
celebrate the Campaign for Howard’s
The “Campaign for Howard” also serves as a yardstick and an
success at its halfway point. incentive for other HBCUs to improve their own fundraising efforts.
At the retreat, Swygert drew upon old and young blood. Dr. James Cheek, former Howard president and
now-president emeritus, and Dr. Roger Estep, a veterinarian who served as vice president for development
and university relations, weighed in with their ideas. Sophisticated financial insight came from corporate
luminary and Chairman of the Board of Trustees Richard D. Parsons. As the chairman of Time Warner,
Parsons is one of the most prominent African-Americans in global business whose exploits have been
fodder for many cover stories in national business magazines.
Participants were thinking big, indeed. It was clear that they were creating something broad-based that was
to be a break from the past.
“We talked about setting a campaign goal of $100 million, then $125 million,” Swygert remembers. “Then we
decided, in a burst of overconfidence that the goal should be $250 million. This would give us a stretch
goal,” he says. Even the campaign slogan they came up with was tailored to let alumni know just who they
were and how much they had to offer. It read: “Leadership for America and the Global Community.” The
campaign kicked off in March 2002 with an end date of Dec. 31, 2007.
Not only was the $250 million goal reached 10 months before the deadline, it was surpassed by $22 million.
The funds enriched Howard’s endowment to a total of $532 million, the largest of any HBCU. As many as 81
individuals pledged more than $1 million each. Swygert, who will retire in June, is now laying the foundation
for another campaign aimed at $1 billion in donations that would double Howard’s endowment.
Why not? he asks. “There are about 31 university campaigns right now that have goals of more than $1
billion,” he says. Harvard University’s endowment is a whopping $34 billion and No. 2 Yale has $22 billion.
Even Georgetown University just across the city from Howard has an endowment of $1 billion.
2. Setting an Example
Howard’s success offers many examples for its fellow HBCUs. Swygert says
he has talked informally to the presidents of other schools about his
experience. Meanwhile, Howard officials are taking apart the campaign and
are expected to publish a report on lessons learned that will be made available
to other HBCUs in coming months.
There’s little doubt that other HBCUs could use some
help. Alumni giving typically falls short of other
schools. Endowments are comparatively small. While
predominately White institutions have giving rates
ranging from 20 to 60 percent, HBCUs typically fall
below 10 percent, according to a 2006 study by Dr.
Howard University President H. William Allan Kritsonis, professor of educational
Patrick Swygert, who is set to
retire in June, is laying the leadership at Prairie View A&M University, and Monica
foundation for another campaign G. Williams, a doctoral student at the university. At
that would double the university’s
endowment.
Howard, campaign leaders achieved their goals by tapping a number of
resources. One was hiring Virgil Ecton, vice president for university
advancement, a fundraising guru with experience at the United Negro College Fund. Another was upgrading
the alumni offices’ information technology so it would make solicitations cheaply and easily. As Swygert
notes, of 66,000 or so alumni, they only had the e-mail addresses of 7,000. “Now we have 30,000
addresses,” he says.
Direct, personal community outreach was also essential. Swygert, Parsons and other fundraisers held a
series of meet-and-greet sessions with Howard alumni in Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York
and Philadelphia. Renee Higginbotham- Brooks, vice chairman of the board of trustees and a Texas lawyer,
remembers one alumni outreach meeting in Miami in 2004. “It really surprised everyone. It was the first time
Howard had ever done that. By the end of the meeting, we had raised $7 million,” she says.
Another memorable fundraising event, says Higginbotham-Brooks, was held at the gleaming, new corporate
headquarters of Time Warner in Manhattan. Trustee head Parsons arranged for the confab among his many
contributions to the campaign. Swygert says Parsons played a critical role by staying the course as the head
of the campaign throughout its five-year run.
Indeed, Parsons, one of the most prominent business leaders in the United States, may have been the
single most important reason for the campaign’s success. At the time he took over the campaign, he was
deeply involved in the troubled merger of Time Warner with AOL and was busy rationalizing the acquisition.
Parsons has held a number of prominent posts in state and federal government and serves on the boards of
such major companies as Citigroup Inc. and Estée Lauder Inc. He has gained plenty of fundraising
experience as chairman of the Apollo Theater Foundation and as a board member of The Museum of
Modern Art and the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
What’s more, Swygert says, Parsons remained as head of the campaign for its entire seven-year duration.
Having one person in charge consistently made a major difference.
“There were no revolving chairs, and I can’t stress that enough,” says Swygert.
“The Campaign for Howard was a university- wide effort, involving the entire board, the administration and
faculty, and students and alumni,” replied Parsons via e-mail to Diverse. “Its overwhelming success reflects
the high regard in which Howard University is held by those constituencies and many other friends
throughout the country.”
What’s next for Howard is planning for the next campaign, once a post-mortem is finished on the most
recent one. Howard’s endowment has moved up to $532 million, up from $144 million when Swygert took
