It’s Almost a Requirement Now to Tell Donors the Impact of Their Gifts

Research universities like Harvard, which just wrapped up a history-making $9.6 billion haul, hold a strategic advantage in making their case to campaign donors, says Daniel Diermeier, provost of the University of Chicago. Research universities generate society-changing discoveries and solutions, he says, and donors eager to make a difference are responding to that case for support.

Campaign Fever: Inside a Boom in Fundraising Drives

More organizations than ever are running multiyear campaigns with eye-popping dollar goals. But as donor interests change and competition for fundraising talent grows more intense, many organizations are rethinking the smartest ways to raise such big dollars.

“You’re seeing this at Harvard, at a bunch of our peers, where they’re resetting their campaign goals,” Diermeier says. “If they’re giving to the University of Chicago, those gifts have the possibility to be transformational. You’re utilizing the entire capacity of the university for impact. Donors are increasingly realizing that.”

The University of Chicago is in the home stretch of a five-year campaign, called Inquiry and Impact, aimed at raising $5 billion, up from its original goal of $4.5 billion. It’s raised nearly $4.8 billion so far. Some of the drive’s largest gifts benefit more than one department or school, Diermeier says.

The campaign’s website highlights stories about giving’s impact: how a researcher at its Institute for Molecular Engineering, for instance, is working with collections of lipid molecules that might help dissolve blood clots. Or how students from across the university are helping Gary, Ind., find solutions to its persistent problems with abandoned housing, testing ideas other struggling cities might adopt.

Where Did the Money Go?

Contributors to campaigns, like donors more generally, are demanding — and getting — more detailed information on their gifts’ impact, fundraisers say. Sharing such information with supporters has become “a growing interest bordering on requirement,” says Suzanne Hilser-Wiles, president of GG+A, a Chicago fundraising consultancy that works on many big campaigns.

Even donors who support endowments, traditionally an act of faith that an organization’s rainy day fund will be put to good future use, demand more reporting about where the money will go, Hilser-Wiles says. It’s common to send donors an impact report with a financial report, she says, spelling out the multi-year impact of the endowment rather than just current annual figures. For instance, she says, such a report might include the number of students who would be served by an endowment over time. “There’s just much more specificity about what the gift is doing,” Hilser-Wiles says. “And that specificity is there for good.”