Private funds to fill the public gap

Gerberding Hall was built with public funds. So were the neighboring Suzzallo Library, Meany Theatre and most other buildings on the UW's Seattle, Tacoma and Bothell campuses.

But inside Gerberding, work is being done to buck the UW's reliance on public funds.

"This is the first time in the history of the institution where we've really needed to partner with the private sector to have the kind of capital facilities that are urgently needed," said Connie Kravas, vice president of University alumni relations and organizing member of Campaign UW, an eight-year, University-wide fundraiser.

According to Kravas, the term "public" has little to do with the school's operating budget.

"We just couldn't [run this university] without the private sector," she continued. "We're publicly located, not totally publicly supported."

Now in its fifth year, Campaign UW has raised approximately $1.2 billion of its $2 billion goal. All donations go directly to the department, program, faculty or research the donor wishes to support, but for organizational reasons the campaign data lumps all donations into one of five categories -- student support, faculty support, program support, unrestricted and capital.

Capital is a new category, which hasn't existed in many other public-institution's fundraising, including the UW's first private fundraising campaign during the late 1980s.

As Kravas explained, the capital section is reserved for larger gifts -- "10 or 20 times a regular annual gift," she said -- that typically go into large and noticeable projects, like new buildings.

Before 2008, the UW Business School is hoping to raise $206 million to completely rebuild Balmer and McKenzie halls. The $56 million already earned has been placed under the capital headline -- along with the money contributed to build the William H. Gates Hall, the Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science and Engineering and a new building for the department of genome sciences and bioengineering, which will open in Spring 2006.

As of November 2004, when the campaign's latest Report of Contributions was released, capital has accounted for about 20 percent of all donations, amounting to $245 million.

Campaign of Campaigns

Campaign UW organizers refer to their fundraising as a "campaign of campaigns."

In November 2001, the Board of Regents and the UW Foundation came together to authorize Campaign UW. During the meeting, members of both groups looked at 26 "plans" that read like wish lists from every UW department, college, school and program.

"When you talk about $2 billion, it's pretty astounding and it sounds as if it's University-wide, coming from the top, but it's not," explained Laurie Houck, an organizer who is now one of the campaign's large donation solicitor. "It's actually each school and college deciding their needs and what they need to move forward."

Even at $2 billion, Campaign UW is unprecedented in its monetary audacity -- for a public institution. During it's last major fundraising campaign, Harvard University, one of the oldest and most well-funded private institutions in the nation, raised about $460 million annually.

According to Gates, a big challenge for Campaign UW was convincing the people of Washington State that the UW really needed private money.

"We've only been at this about 25 years," Gates said, referring to the search for private funds by the UW and public institutions in general. "Harvard has been around since the mid-1600s."

Dissent in a small budget state

According to Gates and Kravas, Campaign UW is an outrageous success. But not everyone is happy about the implications this campaign may have on future funding.

There are those against the campaign taking money away from other universities, and those afraid the campaign will allow the state to limit the UW's funding.

In early February, Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Bill Virgin took a look at the smaller college view of "brand name" college fundraising.

Loren Anderson, president of Pacific Lutheran University, described what she saw as the problem of "privatization of public higher education."

"Cash-strapped state governments are increasingly telling higher-ed to fend for itself financially," Anderson was paraphrased as saying. "So those public schools that once relied mainly on state budget support are turning to philanthropic higher-ed dollars that used to be largely the province of the private schools."

Considering the small alumni base of private institutions and minor presitge of small public institutions, Anderson's argument is verifiable.Historically, the largest donors to private schools have been foundations and corporations -- which makes two-thirds of their donations to private schools 20 years ago, according to Anderson.

Today, the trend has been reversed. Now the same corporations give two-thirds of their donations to public institutions.

By drawing attention to funding needs not only at the UW but at schools around the state, Campaign UW is giving fundraising at other schools a boost -- not taking it away, Kravas argued.

Despite Anderson's complaints, PLU just completed the largest fundraising campaign in its history, totaling $128 million.

Paul Baker, executive director of the Central Washington University Foundation, is in the midst of running his school's first public campaign.

The campaigns are either going to turn into a competition for donors' dollars or a plea to get people to donate more, he pointed out.

While a lag in public funding led to the recent influx in private money Campaigns, fear persists from donors and even organizers that alternative sources of money will lead to less public funding.

A section on "underlying assumptions and principles" in the Campaign's plan states: "The purpose of the campaign is to raise private support to allow for the enhancement and excellence of the University, and not to replace the state's funding commitment."

"We are working very, very hard to ensure that the Legislature, in tough times, doesn't penalize the institution because individuals care enough to support our students and faculty," Kravas said. "That would be deadly."