Last Monday, SFU launched it’s 50th-anniversary fundraising campaign amid a colourful crowd of energetic spectators. The university is hoping to raise $250 million by its 50th birthday in September, 2015.
Dubbed The Power of Engagement, this campaign marks the largest fundraiser initiative ever undertaken by SFU. Currently, the university raises five per cent of its annual $500-million-plus budget every year, but SFU President Andrew Petter hopes that this campaign will represent “a down payment on another half century of excellence.”
SFU is looking to use this campaign to raise money to support everything from student scholarships to building greater community engagement. In a letter to the Vancouver Sun that was published on Sept. 6, Petter outlined how the $250 million target would be spent, should it be achieved.
Cathy Daminato, SFU’s VP Advancement and Alumni Engagement, spearheaded the campaign, and has been planning for the launch for the past two years. Daminato said she saw the anniversary as an opportunity to celebrate the university, and to set the institutions up financially for the years to come.
“When you think that 48 years ago we had 2,500 students, today we’ve got over 30,000 students,” said Daminato, “We’ve got 120,000 alumni in 130 countries around the world . . . It just seemed like a great opportunity to celebrate and a great opportunity to build a campaign around something that was very meaningful.”
Petter hopes that this campaign will represent “a down payment on another half century of excellence.”
The campaign will involve asking SFU alumni, community partners, individuals, organizations, corporations, friends of the university, and even those who don’t have associations with the university to donate to the SFU cause. Daminato points out that some substantial gifts to the university in the past have come from individuals with no previous association with SFU, such as the $12 million given by Marilyn and Stewart Blusson towards the building named after the philanthropic couple.
“I’ll be knocking on quite a few doors,” Daminato said with a laugh. “Meeting as many people as we can, telling the SFU story.” Over the next two years, Daminato and a team of approximately 50 people will be working on building those relationships with donors and convincing them to put money towards various projects and causes.
Another key part of Daminato’s job in fundraising is matching prospective donors to SFU projects that interest them. “They usually have pretty specific goals,” Daminato said. “They have their own philanthropic objectives, so what we look to do is try to find a match between what they would like to accomplish with their funding and what the university needs.”
The $250 million goal was a result of an analysis done by the administration of what SFU currently is able to raise per year, and then stretched a bit beyond that. “But also the number 50,” Daminato laughed. “I cannot tell a lie, it did factor into this. Because it’s the 50th anniversary campaign, we’re thinking in multiples of 50.”
Of the fundraising goal, $100 million will be dedicated to engaging students; this means funding scholarships, bursaries, and awards, and supporting programs such as SFU’s Semester in Dialogue “that go beyond the everyday commitment to provide knowledge,” according to President Petter.
I’ll be knocking on quite a few doors.”
– Cathy Daminato, SFU’s VP Advancement and Alumni Engagement
Daminato also mentioned plans for projects to improve the Bennett Library, a $10 million cultural program investment for the Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, and building a stadium, if that does not end up being part of the BuildSFU project.
Another $100 million will be put towards engaging research, teaching, and professorships, and the final $50 million will support SFU’s community engagement initiatives.
The launch party in Convocation Mall last Monday included speeches from President Petter and notable alumni such as Angus Reid and Ryan Beedie, as well as a dancing flash-mob made up of a sea of SFU community members in red shirts, meant to drum up excitement in the SFU and the larger community for the anniversary.
As Petter wrote in his op-ed for the Vancouver Sun, he sees the campaign revolving around engaging students both on-campus and off.
“What we mean by (an engaged university) is that is a university that not only provides students with an education in the classroom,” wrote Petter. “It also gives them the opportunity, through co-op and experiential learning, to engage in communities.”
