Vassar fundraising tops $50 million

Shahreen Saifi Assistant News Editor

It was a record-breaking year of fundraising for Vassar, among many schools. According to the Council for Aid to Education (CAE), Vassar raised $34,337,585, but including gifts and pledges, Vassar’s total fundraising for the year was approximately $50 million.

Vassar’s financial report on June 30, 2006 acknowledged that “one major factor in the growth in net assets was the exceptional outpouring of gifts and pledges from alumnae/i and friends of the College in recognition of the 20-year career of retiring President Frances Daly Fergusson.”

Vice President for Development Catherine Baer concurred, “Last year’s was our biggest fundraising effort ever, and a great deal was from gifts from Fran’s retirement.”

These gifts included $10 million from John and Barbara Vogelstein; eight endowments set up under Fergusson’s name, including The Fergusson Presidential Scholarship Fund; and 20 granite benches inscribed with the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop ’34 that symbolize the two decades of Fergusson’s service.

In previous years the money raised by the Development Office has gone toward a number of renovations on campus. Most recently the Kenyon Hall dance space and the Josselyn House lobby and parlor were renovated.

This year $8,250,000 has been set aside for identified priorities throughout the campus. The Old Observatory will be renovated and become the new space for the Education Department. There will also be a number of changes made to Josselyn House and the quad dorms with support from the Office of Residential Life, and plans to improve the Athletic Department Facilities, which have been underway for the past 10 years, will continue with the renovation of Prentiss Fields.

Other goals include academic support. “We are also seeking endowed and expendable gifts for scholarships. This is a high priority this year and it will be in the years ahead,” said Baer. “President [Catharine Bond] Hill, like the students, would very much like to see us go back to need-blind in our admissions process and we are seeking the financial support to make that possible.”

Most of the funding for these improvements has come from alumnae/i giving. According to CAE, the 9.4 percent growth in the amount of money raised comes from “personal giving.”

Director of Development for Principle and Leadership Gifts Jennifer Dahnert agreed with the assessment and admits a large part of the fund-raising process is appealing to alumnae/i. “We work on building relationships with alumni, having one-on-one conversations. Part of the job is a lot of work with specific individuals,” said Dahnert.

The CAE reported a general increase in contributions to higher education institutions, calculating that a total of $28 billion was raised by the end of 2006. The greatest amount was raised by Stanford University, almost a billion dollars, followed by Harvard University, which raised $595 million.