Fundraising Drive To Be Called ‘The Harvard Campaign’

The University will call its upcoming capital campaign “The Harvard Campaign,” University spokesperson Kevin Galvin confirmed Tuesday.

In an email sent last Thursday whose subject line served as the first acknowledgement of the campaign’s title to large portions of the Harvard community, University President Drew G. Faust outlined seven “overarching principles” that will guide the initiative’s fundraising efforts.

The message, sent to Harvard’s faculty and staff, identified those seven points as interdisciplinary research and learning, investment in students and faculty, novel teaching and learning techniques, the globalization of knowledge, exploration of civilizations and values, hands-on discovery, and the creation of a physical campus that captures Harvard’s goals.

The campaign is projected to raise billions of dollars across Harvard’s various Schools and will launch in September, ending a two-year quiet phase focused on gauging donor interest and determining campaign priorities. Donors have predicted that the campaign will seek to raise more than $6 billion, likely topping Stanford’s recent record-breaking $6.2 billion fundraising drive.

The overarching principles, Faust wrote in the email, “will propel Harvard towards its fifth century of intellectual distinction, enabling us to solve pressing problems, to educate leaders, and to generate ideas that meet the complexities of our times.”

Galvin said the University chose not to use a name resembling a slogan, as peer institutions have done with similar initiatives. “The Stanford Challenge” and Yale’s $3.88 billion “Yale Tomorrow” each ended in 2011 and Princeton’s $1.88 billion “Aspire Campaign” came to a close in 2012.

Although “The Harvard Campaign” may differ in tone from other titles, Faust’s email framed the initiative as a way to get one step closer to attaining “the broader power of one Harvard,” an ambition for a more unified and interconnected University and a concept that Faust has emphasized numerous times during her presidency.

“You will hear a great deal in the months and years to come about The Harvard Campaign,” Faust wrote. “It offers us an extraordinary opportunity to strengthen each School and to work together across School boundaries in pursuit of larger common purposes.”

—Staff writer Nikita Kansra can be reached at nkansra01@college.harvard.edu. Follow her on Twitter @NikitaKansra.

—Staff writer Samuel Y. Weinstock can be reached at sweinstock@college.harvard.edu. Follow him on Twitter @syweinstock.