Davidson College looks to alumni, parents as it sets ambitious $425 million goal

Davidson College is expected to announce Friday night a five-year fundraising campaign of nearly a half-billion dollars to bolster its endowment, increase its scholarship fund and expand its historic campus 20 miles north of Charlotte.

At $425 million, it will be the largest drive in the college’s 177-year history, and it already has a running start. Alison Mauze, a Davidson trustee, 1984 graduate and one of the campaign’s leaders, said about $210 million has been raised during a “quiet phase” that began in July 2010.

Mauze said a fundraising analysis indicates that Davidson is likely to raise about $50 million each year in the drive, which will target alumni, parents, foundations and new partners. “It’s a stretch goal, but achievable,” said Mauze, who lives in San Francisco and is a former vice president with JPMorgan Chase.

Part of the optimism about the campaign reflects Davidson’s development base and high-achieving alumni profiles. About 60 percent of Davidson’s 20,000 living alumni consistently donate to the college annually, one of the highest percentages of return in the nation and comparable to that of universities like Duke and Princeton.

Davidson, with an enrollment of 1,911, is also one of four educational institutions – along with Duke, Furman and Johnson C. Smith universities – supported by the Charlotte-based Duke Endowment. Recent major gifts from Duke include $45 million in 2012 for construction of an anchor building for the college’s innovative Academic Neighborhood, where a variety of disciplines are studied, and $6 million announced in October to support scholarships.

Davidson’s overall financial aid goal is to attract top students regardless of family income and allow them to graduate unburdened by institutional debt. About half of the campaign is earmarked to support the scholarship program.

Targets for fundraising

Some of the money raised in the campaign will help pay for the college’s $74 million science building under construction on the edge of campus.

Its design mixes offices and laboratories of various departments such as biology, chemistry, psychology, neuroscience and environmental studies to encourage interdisciplinary interaction.

Julio Ramirez, a psychology professor and internationally known for his neuroscience research into recovery of function after central nervous system injury, said the building will create a “cool crucible” to take a multi-layered approach to issues.

Ramirez said, by way of example, that he was vexed by a laboratory problem with a virus. He went to see a colleague in another discipline, Dave Wessner in the biology department, to talk about it. That conversation resulted in a collaboration and publication of a paper in the prestigious Journal of Neuroscience.

Ramirez said the layout of the science building will facilitate such interactions and help Davidson in its goal to produce leaders who can take scientific, social and political approaches to problem-solving.

Also targeted for upgrades from the campaign are the college’s Baker Sports Complex.

Finding new sources

Part of the campaign will be aimed at finding new partners – like one with the fast-expanding marketing firm Red Ventures in Fort Mill, S.C., which has donated to the college, provided internships and hired graduates – said Carol Quillen, who is in her fourth year as Davidson president.

Davidson is committed to producing graduates “with a disproportionate impact for good in their communities,” Quillen said. “Think big, look up and look forward.”

She said the theme of the campaign, “ Game Changers,” reflects the college’s philosophy of graduating students who will excel in their fields and be prepared to adjust to changes in their career path.

Quillen said some of the campaign will help increase Davidson’s $634 million endowment and bring it more into line with peer institutions, some of which draw on endowments of upward of $2 billion. Harvard University has the nation’s biggest endowment, $36 billion; Duke University in Durham ranks No. 15 at $6 billion.

Quillen said Davidson competes with such institutions for top students and faculty. It markets itself to those interested in the top 20 liberal arts colleges in the nation and schools that offer quality educations at the level of the Ivy League, Duke or Stanford.

Timing seems fortunate

Recovery from the recession is sparking a new era of college fundraising nationally. A recent report by the Council for Aid to Education found that private colleges nationally recorded an 11 percent surge in annual donations in 2013.

Michael Worth, a professor of nonprofit management at George Washington University who follows higher-education fundraising, said Thursday that whenever Wall Street has a good year, college fundraising does too.

“Universities are different than other non-profits because their campaigns rely on big gifts and those tend to track the stock market,” Worth said. “We’re seeing record campaign goals and record numbers of these large gifts.”

Endowments remain a key source of support for higher education, providing an average of 9 percent of budget, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers.

Many institutions, including Davidson, use their endowment income to fund financial aid and other programs for students and faculty.

This story was originally published November 14, 2014 at 5:00 AM.