Harvard Raises $614M

Despite a year of uncertainty as Harvard searched for its 28th president, the University raised $614 million—an increase of 3.2 percent over fiscal year 2006—marking the most successful year for fundraising since 2001, according to a statement released today.

With year-over-year inflation running at 2.4 percent from July 2006 to July 2007, Harvard’s donations represented a 0.8 percent increase in real terms.

Donations appeared relatively unaffected among all divisions of the University, suggesting that the risk that donors would withhold gifts between the resignation of Lawrence H. Summers and the naming of a new president did not materialize.

“There’s tremendous excitement and support for President Faust, and I think that the entire community is very supportive of her appointment to the presidency, which will be reflected in future development,” said Andrew K. Tiedemann, a spokesman for the University Development Office, which oversees fundraising.

The Law School, which launched a $400 million capital campaign in 2003, received a $22.5 million donation from the family of Bruce J. Wasserstein, the CEO of Lazard Ltd. and a graduate of the Harvard Law and Business schools.

The campaign had netted $385 million by the end of the fiscal year and should easily achieve the $400 million goal by the June 2008 close of the fund drive, according to the University’s statement.

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences received $205 million in donations—a 6 percent increase over 2006 and a 22 percent jump from 2005—with participation in the Harvard College Fund remaining unchanged from the previous year at 39 percent.

Tiedemann said alumni have a wide range of reasons for donating to the University.

“A lot of it has to do with their own personal and philanthropic agenda and what they want to see done,” Tiedemann said. “Some has to do with their personal involvement with Harvard and gratitude to Harvard for what it has done.”

Other large donations during the year included $14.6 million from the estate of Hope B. Belloc ’20 to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and $10.6 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in support of work in global health.

As the law school’s capital campaign draws to a close, President Drew G. Faust suggested that a University-wide fundraising drive may be farther away than previously supposed.

“You have these very long silent phases before you announce a campaign,” Faust said in an interview. “So there would be no way we could announce a campaign before 2010, even if we decided today to start our silent phase.”

Faust helped plan the initial stages of the fundraising drive in her role as dean of the Radcliffe Institute, but she cautioned that much of the planning needs updating to accomodate her recent appointment of several new deans.

—Staff writer Nathan C. Strauss can be reached at strauss@fas.harvard.edu.