With just over a year left in the seven-year, $2 billion Campaign for Duke and 96 percent of the goal met, the University is shifting its focus from the 10 major divisions--the seven schools, athletics, the library and University-wide initiatives--to individual areas within the divisions.
Fundraisers are specifically concentrating on meeting their goals for over $300 million for financial aid, over $250 million for faculty support and over $400 million for facilities areas, said Peter Vaughn, director of communications and donor relations for the Office of University Development. Together, these three areas comprise almost half of the total Campaign goal.
"Parts are important," Vaughn said. "We never thought the Campaign would be successful until every division and every target within the divisions' needs were met."
He added that the University's needs exceed the Campaign's goal and that fundraising for different areas, or "buckets" as fundraising officials call them, would continue past $2 billion.
"We've always approached the Campaign from two different ways, dividing each division into different areas," Vaughn said. "As individual additions meet their total goals, that does not mean each of their [individual area] needs are met."
With Campaign strategies targeting the demands of very specific areas, fundraising officials said they have adjusted how they approach donors and what gifts to propose.
"When I go to talk to potential donors, I always have several different arrows in the quiver, so to speak," President Nan Keohane said. "Part of that is in assessing their interests, but increasingly I've been pulling out particular arrows that match our needs, including faculty support."
As one of the three areas now receiving greater attention, faculty support may grow with the help of gift challenges, for which a primary donor pledges to match the gifts of other individual donors.
"It requires quite large gifts to endow [faculty] positions, and [gift challenges] let people endow a professorship with a little less money," Vaughn said.
The goals for both faculty support and facilities increased in 2001, when the University's optimism that it could corral funds grew. If the facilities goal had not approximately doubled, Vaughn said that area would have already been full.
Undergraduate financial aid, however, is another story. The fundraising goal for undergraduate need-based scholarships is almost met, but merit-based scholarship goals and graduate student goals still need funding. "It's a bucket that is never filled," Vaughn said.
Of the 10 divisions, the library system lags the furthest behind with less than 90 percent of its goal filled. Following after is Arts and Sciences at 90 percent. Representatives from both said they are confident they will meet their goals. Both the School of Law and the Pratt School of Engineering have already exceeded their goals.
Of the over $1.9 billion pledged so far, 83 percent has actually been paid--a percentage consistent with the Campaign over time.
Of the library's four sub-areas and total $40 million goal, it has exceeded both its $9.5 million endowment and $1.5 million Annual Fund goals. It is still behind, however, in both its $20 million building and $9 million program/services goals.
"Something working in our favor now is we finally have detailed designs for spaces in the library [addition] that we can show donors," University Librarian David Ferriero said. "In the beginning, we were just describing the rooms."
Donors, with sufficiently large gifts, can name rooms or even the entire addition. Of the three-phase addition plan, only the first phase is included in the capital campaign.
With only $41 million remaining of the $400 million Arts and Sciences goal, Associate Dean for Advancement Colleen Fitzpatrick said the division would not need to actively change its strategy for the last stretch of the Campaign. "We're right on target," she said.
Of the seven Arts and Sciences areas, the $6 million Student Affairs goal and the $94.5 million for programmatic support have been reached and exceeded, and 95 percent of the $64 million Annual Fund goal has been met.
In its last year, the Arts and Sciences campaign will focus on the four yet-unfilled areas: $101 million for undergraduate scholarships, $30 million for graduate fellowships, $65 million for faculty support and $39.5 million for facilities.
Athletics may be the next to finish its goal, with 98 percent of its $130 million goal completed. Following athletics is the Nicholas School for the Environment and Earth Sciences and University-wide initiatives, both at 97 percent.
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