A&M’s big goal
Texas A&M plans an ambitious fundraising goal unrivaled in Texas.
Texas A&M University has announced an ambitious fundraising goal unrivaled in Texas in the hopes it can capitalize on recent successes that have drawn the national spotlight to College Station.
Campus President Michael K. Young on Thursday announced the university aims to raise $4 billion by 2020, the largest comprehensive fundraising campaign ever announced in Texas and the second-largest conducted nationally by a public university. After hiring a new president, spending more on research and working to recruit the best students and nationally competitive faculty, officials say now is the time to encourage giving.
“The stars really have aligned at this institution in a powerful way,” Young said in an interview before the announcement. “We’re in a position where we can do a lot with these resources that really does make the world a better place,
and people will respond to that.”
The multiyear campaign, called “Lead By Example,” is aimed at raising money so the university can mold leaders and encourage research that eventually have real-world impacts, Young added, with money raised going toward scholarships, faculty recruitment and retention, and facilities maintenance and construction. He said around 15 percent of the total raised will go toward athletics, mostly to fund scholarships.
‘It can be done’
Just the University of California Los Angeles, which is working to raise $4.2 billion by 2019, and the University of Michigan have aimed to surpass or meet the goal, which Young called the most expansive and ambitious plan of its kind “outside of Hollywood.” The University of Texas at Austin successfully wrapped up a $3 billion campaign last year.
The goal is lofty, but officials are optimistic it can be reached on time even as the energy economy, which sustains many of the university’s top alumni, continues to suffer from the repercussions of chronically low oil prices.
“Any time you have a campaign of this nature, you have to stretch. Is it a lead-pipe cinch? Absolutely not,” said Ed Davis, president of the Texas A&M Foundation, a nonprofit that seeks large donations for the university. “I think it’ll be a challenge. It can be done, but it’s going to take a lot of shoe leather.”
The university already is nearly halfway to its target, having raised $1.9 billion during its two-year “quiet phase.” Approximately 150,000 donors have contributed so far, with 90 percent having given more than one gift, the foundation confirmed.
The majority of the largest contributions were targeted donations that went toward a specific purpose, like the $25 million the Zachry family of San Antonio gave to fund the expansion of the engineering complex, but the university is encouraging giving at any level.
The Association of Former Students hopes to count 100,000 annual fund donors by the campaign’s end.
Ambitious fundraising goals of this kind are becoming more common, said Robert Henry, executive director of emerging constituencies at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, a Washingtonbased higher education professional association. He said more public colleges and universities are setting high giving targets as states cut funding for public institutions and enrollment grows, necessitating the hiring of more faculty, expansion of programs and construction of new facilities.
High targets more common
He said it is unusual, even “unacceptable” to miss a target, adding, “I think if an institution was fearful of not reaching its goal, it would extend the campaign.”
While A&M officials acknowledge the goal is ambitious, Davis said high fundraising targets like theirs likely will become easier to reach in the coming years. The foundation targets alumni between the ages of 55 and 75. Davis said there were 20,000 people in that range in 2006, when the university reached its last fundraising goal of $1.4 billion. Today there are 50,000, he said, but that number could reach 100,000 by 2020.
“It would not surprise me if sometime in the next decade we were announcing the largest (ever) campaign,” Davis said. “Just because of the numbers.”