Latest Figures Show Univ. on Pace To Raise $2B in Single Year

UPDATED: September 15, 2014, at 11:05 p.m.

By Nadia X. Haile

Harvard has raised at least $4.3 billion in pledges and donations during its University-wide capital campaign so far, including $500 million in the second quarter of 2014 alone.

This progress puts the University on pace to raise a record-breaking $2 billion in just a twelve-month period, beginning last September with the The Harvard Campaign’s public launch.

James F. Rothenberg ’68, a member of the University’s highest governing body, shared the latest comprehensive accounting figures—current as of June 30—with The Crimson on Monday. The June 30 total does not include Gerald L. Chan’s $350 million gift to the School of Public Health, which was finalized in July and announced last week.

Including Chan’s gift, the Harvard Campaign has raised at least $4.65 billion since it launched. That represents 72 percent of the $6.5 billion campaign goal unveiled last September. At that point, the University had taken in $2.8 billion in a two-year “quiet phase.”

Chan’s gift also puts Harvard well in reach of the $2 billion milestone. The deal was completed in late July, meaning that by the end of that month, the University had raised at least $1.85 billion since September 2013. Raising funds at at least the $150 million per quarter rate Harvard averaged before the campaign’s quiet phase launched would round out that figure.

University Treasurer James F. Rothenberg ’68, pictured at Commencement in 2013, will step down from his post in July 2014. By John Y. Wang

Rothenberg, Harvard’s treasurer from 2004 until earlier this year, said Monday that he and other University officials are now cautiously optimistic that Harvard will meet, and perhaps exceed, the $6.5 billion goal. The campaign is slated to last another four years.

“We’re more optimistic now about reaching the target and potentially going by it then we were a year and a half ago,” Rothenberg said, adding that the University has a long list of potentially major donors yet to be tapped.

“We haven’t exhausted the list of potentially significant donors,” he said. “We’re not at signed, sealed, and delivered yet...but let me put it this way, they haven’t said ‘no.’”

Rothenberg also said that the Corporation has not had serious discussions about raising the goal, which is common when campaigns get off to such a fast start.

“I think there’s two ways to go...one way is to say, ‘if we hit the target, we’re not going to stop,’ and that’s what Stanford did. It set its target at $4.3 billion and raised [$6.2 billion],” Rothenberg said. “I don’t know if we’ll ever raise the target.”

If Harvard meets its campaign goal, it would set a fundraising record for higher education. Stanford’s capital campaign, which concluded in 2011, is the current high-water mark. Just ten months after the public launch, Harvard has shattered Stanford’s one-year fundraising record of $1 billion, set in 2012.

—Staff writer Matthew Q. Clarida can be reached at matthew.clarida@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @mattclarida.