Bishops set to renew focus on fundraising and reputation post campaign
Last Thursday, as the kick-off to homecoming weekend, Bishop’s University announced an unheardof success in its “Leading the Way” capital campaign. That five-year campaign now coming to an end, however, BU Principal Michael Goldbloom says that the most important thing for the University is to not lose steam in its fundraising efforts.
“The opportunity I see is that Bishop’s has a fair amount of momentum right now,” the Principal said. “The really important thing for us is to not do what we did in 2003,” he added, explaining that the faux-pas in question was to sit back and take it easy after completing a capital campaign, losing almost all of their nurtured sympathy and support in the process.
“(Fundraising) has to become a central component of what we do,” Goldbloom continued.
While positive about the fact that combined fundraising and infrastructure investments over the last five years has added up to more than $100 million for projects at the school, the principal pointed out that financial sustainability is always going to be a challenge for Bishop’s as long as the funding model for universities is based on enrollment, since the small size of the school is a core part of its identity.
“The funding we were given really only allowed us to continue to do what we were already doing,” Goldbloom said, adding, “There are many things we would like to do.”
Asked what he sees as the next big priority for the school after the focus on the capital campaign, the principal shared
that he wants to take on Bishop’s academic reputation. While noting that the school regularly performs well on ratings of student satisfaction, Goldbloom pointed out that the university continues to run in the middle of the pack when it comes to academic rankings.
“We just need to do a better job of describing who we are,” he said, arguing that the broader Canadian community still perceives Bishop’s as a party school when it has worked really hard to move beyond that. “I think that student conduct has improved considerably,” the principal added, calling it increasingly unjust that some media still report on uneventful orientation weeks as if they are news.
That idea being well rooted in the public eye, Goldbloom said that the school and alumni team will be working hard to share stories of academic excellence in the coming years to help improve the school’s reputation, helped by the significant contributions that have been made to student scholarships through the recent fundraising.
At the grand re-opening of the John H Price Sports Centre in 2015, Goldbloom made reference to the fact that Bishops and other institutions like it will need to look at fundraising on a broader scale in the future. Although the “Leading the Way” campaign did bring in donations from a wide variety of sources, the principal said that it still relied on a fairly traditional approach to soliciting support.
“This campaign was still what you might call a major gifts campaign,” Goldbloom said, admitting that there was no more broad appeal to the school’s roughly 19,000 graduates for support than usual. While stating that it is important to give campaign volunteers a chance to rest now, the principal reiterated the point of view that support needs to be fostered continuously in order to be maintained. “Raising funds is an important part of the role of the principal.”
This is year four of a second five-year term as Principal for Goldbloom. Asked about whether or not more time at Bishop’s was on the horizon for him, the principal opted not to comment other than to say that the school’s process for discussing the end of his contract is currently underway. Focusing instead on the more immediate future of the school, he noted the fact that the school’s budget is sustainably balanced for the first time in a decade this year.
“There is a sense of optimism and ambition at Bishop’s right now that it is gratifying to be a part of,” Goldbloom said.