New fundraising campaign reflects focus on private backing
By Wafiqah Basrai
May 12, 2008 9:04 p.m.
UCLA is working on a fundraising campaign to coincide with its centennial ““ an effort to secure funding for the future.
The fundraising campaign, in the early stages of its development, is expected to go public in 2012, Chancellor Gene Block said.
Block said the fundraising campaign will help students who have to deal with increasing fees.
“The cost of education keeps going up, and fees will rise. We can’t avoid fees rising, but we have to be mindful that this is a burden for many of our students, and so to the extent that we can raise money, especially for things like access, fellowships for graduate students ““ these are critical things,” Block said.
Though Block stressed the importance of the state funding the university receives, he said fundraising is crucial because he believes UCLA will increasingly become a privately funded public institution.
This year, UCLA has a proposed budget of approximately $4 billion.
Of the money UCLA will need to function, approximately 13 percent comes from money set aside in the California state budget for higher education.
The rest comes from campus-generated revenue, research grants, student fees and private giving.
The fundraising will help fill part of the gap between the budget and state funding.
“Moving from good to great is going to require philanthropy, so I think that fundraising and philanthropy is going to be a very important part of this university’s financial model,” Block said.
The process will begin by determining the university’s needs.
This includes strategic planning on issues ranging from student and faculty support to raising money for scholarships and fellowships. The chancellor will also focus on research and enhancing classrooms, laboratories and other facilities.
Each of the departments on campus, including graduate departments, will work to identify the needs for each of their departments or schools.
Then, these needs will be compiled into a larger campus agenda.
Block said the long process is necessary to assess how much money is needed and to allocate those funds.
“You never want to run a campaign that’s unsuccessful; therefore, you have to scale it properly to be realistic, and you have to have a lot of it committed before you launch officially because it’s important for everybody to feel it’s a successful effort, and that’s the right way to do it,” Block said.
Once they’ve decided where to allocate funds, they will begin to attach dollar values for each goal.
“There’s a big team of people to offer up ideas and thoughts ““ what parts of campus we want to grow, how we are going to deepen research,” said Rhea Turteltaub, vice chancellor of external affairs. “It’s a big campus enterprise”.
Then the fundraising will begin, overseen by the UCLA Office of External Affairs, and it will use a range of methods to meet the campaign’s goals.
“The chancellor plays a very prominent role in meeting with alumni and donors. We have a communication team, a large group of people in identifying prospects and working with donors,” said Turteltaub. “Staffing for this is large and complex.”
The last fundraising campaign, Campaign UCLA, was overseen by Chancellor Albert Carnesale and ended in December 2005.
Campaign UCLA far surpassed its goals and raised a total of more than $3 billion in the 10 years of the campaign, benefitting all sectors of UCLA.
“The success of Campaign UCLA is a great testament to our extraordinary faculty and students,” Carnesale said in a press release following the end of Campaign UCLA.
“Private giving is critical if we are to continue to attract the best and the brightest,” he said.
