Business School Surpasses 72 Percent of Billion Dollar Campaign Goal

The Business School raised at least $721 million by the end of June in its ongoing capital campaign, reaching 72 percent of its $1 billion goal two months into the public phase of the fundraising effort, campaign leaders said.

The updated figure, which reflects the progress of the Business School’s campaign through June 30, comprises both the $600 million in gifts and pledges raised during its three-year quiet phase as well as those amassed in its public phase, which was launched at the end of April and will last until at least 2018. The Business School has not provided figures detailing the progress of the campaign since July 1.

By Jake Freyer

The priorities of the campaign include innovation within its business education and managerial programs, broadening the international scope of research and curricula, financial aid, and fostering collaboration with other schools within the University, among others.

Business School Dean Nitin Nohria said in an interview Wednesday that the datum was even higher than that which he had imagined at the campaign’s start.

“I had thought that we would have been at some number that was north of 600 or 650 by the end of this year,” he said. “The fact that we are north of 700 is, in my mind, a great showing of strength in terms of the confidence that our alumni have in the school and the confidence that they have in some of the things that we are doing and the innovations that we are trying to advance with these resources.”

According to Janet Cahill, managing director of the Business School’s capital campaign and external relations, the fundraising effort has done well on a variety of metrics, including geographic and age distribution, as well as in terms of contribution size.

The external relations staff at the Business School has employed a regional strategy in fundraising and messaging for the campaign, according to Cahill, targeting alumni based on their geographic location, profession, and business  interests. By the campaign’s completion, the school expects to have hosted 27 domestic and international alumni events in order to reach its more than 71,600 alumni in 167 countries.

"Just looking at where we are to today versus in the last campaign, we are a much more global institution with our alumni all over the world,” said Cahill, referencing the school’s last fundraising drive, which raised $600 million before its closure in 2005. “So, as we looked at the 27 events we are doing, we knew that for a good portion of those we would need to go to alumni internationally."

Cahill also said that the school’s campaign website, the infrastructure for which required a substantial investment in the years leading up to the launch of the public phase, has received over 267,000 unique visitors since last September. That represents an increase in traffic of 73 percent, compared to the prior year’s fundraising site.

—Staff writer Alexander H. Patel can be reached at alex.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @a2xp3l.