On the heels of an endowment growth campaign that topped $114 million in fiscal year 2010, fundraising for the 1789 Imperative has maintained momentum and is on track to achieve its goals of raising $500 million in scholarship funds by 2016.
The imperative was launched in 2009 as an advance component of the University’s broader $1.5 billion fundraising campaign for the Georgetown Fund, which will launch in October. It seeks to help ensure the University’s commitment to meet the fully demonstrated financial need for undergraduate students, a policy adopted in 1978.
According to Jeffrey Donahoe, senior director of communications in the Office of Advancement, the decision to move up the public launch of the imperative came as a response to the economic recession of 2008.
“An uncertain economy made the need for scholarship support more important than ever,” Donahoe wrote in an email. “Also, the University decided to dedicate all funds raised by the Georgetown Fund, the main undergraduate annual giving program, to support the imperative.”
According to Donahoe, strengthening undergraduate scholarships is currently the University’s number one fundraising priority. It has also been the priority message in the University’s alumni events and publications.
In an email, Patricia McWade, dean of Student Financial Services, explained that the project aims to improve Georgetown’s financial aid packages to more effectively recruit top students by competing with the “no loan” policies at other universities.
“Our goal in the 1789 Scholarship Imperative is to substantially reduce the amount of loans our students have when they graduate.” McWade wrote. “This allows us to better compete to ‘win’ these students so that they come to Georgetown.”
According to McWade, the University hopes to raise $500 million by 2016, covering 1,789 scholarships at $25,000 each. In each $25,000 scholarship, $3,000 will replace what otherwise would have been a loan. The Office of Student Financial Services has already included funds from the 1789 Imperative, which is entirely funded by philanthropy, in student financial aid packages.
Approximately 55 percent of the student body receives some sort of financial aid, composed of scholarships, loans, and work study. McWade said that 40 percent of students receive scholarship aid. About 8 percent of these aid packages either do not contain a loan or substantially reduce the loan that would have been awarded.
In the fiscal year 2010, the first of the imperative, “current-use dollars” funded 369 scholarships at a cost of $25,000 per scholarship. Unlike endowed donations, which are invested to create a self-sustaining resource, current-use dollars must be replaced each year with new donations.
Also this year, donations raised the number of endowed scholarships to 114, compared to 29 in 2007. Halfway through fiscal year 2011, that number is already at 129.
According to the Office of Financial Services, the University’s scholarship budget has steadily increased from $35.3 million in 2004 to $75 million in 2010.
Ben Jarrett, assistant director of the Office of Student Advancement, said the University saw its two largest donations ever last year. The University also raised $5.8 million in donations under $200. Because the imperative funds undergraduate scholarships, Donahoe wrote, the donor pool is primarily comprised of undergraduate alumni.
The national patterns for alumni giving to colleges and universities reflects a downward, if less dramatically decreasing, trend. According to the Council for Aid to Education, an independent organization that tracks private donations to higher education, the average alumni donation decreased by 0.4 percent, compared to an 18-percent drop in the previous fiscal year. However, participation fell from 10 percent in 2009 to 9.8 percent in 2010.
Jarrett primarily engages with younger alumni, but at Georgetown that demographic’s donations reached an all-time high during the last fiscal year. Within this group, the University closely examines the number of younger alumni who maintain their philanthropy. The number of alumni donors, rather than the size of the donation, is also a uniquely important metric with this demographic.
