GW shattered its fundraising record in fiscal year 2012 by tallying $120 million in donations, but saw a slower growth rate for money-raking than the year before.
Administrators broke the $119 million goal for the fiscal year that began July 1, 2011 and ended June 30, after the previous year brought in $113.5 million – marking the fifth straight year of increases in giving. But the University saw a record 21 percent growth in donations last year compared to fiscal year 2010 – far higher than this year's 6 percent growth rate.
Mike Morsberger, vice president for development and alumni relations, said the University is seeing gains later in the game compared to similar institutions, which have focused more intensely on fundraising efforts for multiple decades – unlike GW, which only made development a priority in the last 10 years. The relative newness of the campaign for cash helps draw larger and more frequent gifts.
“When a fundraising and development program is just starting, the field of possible gifts is huge,” Morsberger, who was hired in 2010, said. “More mature programs have a smaller pool of new prospects, just because they’ve been asking more people more often.”
The University's gifts this year outpaced those at other private schools, which saw fundraising increases of about 4.4 percent overall, according to estimates by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education published Aug. 7.
“I’m optimistic for continued growth in the coming year given the trajectory of the university – a bold new academic plan, a bold new visual identity and a decade of transformation for the University leading to our bicentennial in 2021,” Morsberger said.
This year’s donations will be the first to count under the comprehensive fundraising campaign. GW will make benchmarks for the campaign public around fiscal year 2015.
University President Steven Knapp first discussed the campaign when he arrived on campus in 2007, intensifying money drives by giving deans fundraising responsibilities.
Since his arrival, the Division of Development and Alumni Relations tripled its staff. Morsberger said he hopes to increase staff again by about 10 percent in the coming years.
Morsberger has championed personalized fundraising pitches that zone in on alumni interests during their college careers, hoping the ties to a club or athletic team push a former Colonial to give back.
The one and only thing Knapp has done while living in his guarded, little kingdom on campus.
I don’t know how “guarded” his “kingdom” is… He holds open office hours for students, lives on campus (where he walks his dog around all the time), is a GPS mentor to freshman students, and is present at virtually every big event on campus.
I think we are lucky to have a President who is as involved as Knapp is, especially considering the size of GW. Read the news, many Presidents at other schools are leaving amid conflict and corruption.
@Nicole You didn’t mention any bs that we haven’t heard before. None of it makes us think that he interacts with students. He says his house on campus is there so that students can reach him, but he hates being bothered and will have UPD arrest you if you do (true story!) I follow the news and have inside knowledge; he is extremely corrupt, which is why the Board likes him.
That is true. Gw couldn’t deny that they had this student arrested, so Knapp’s response was that they have a right to arrest a student even if they haven’t done anything wrong. So not only is he a horrendous person, but also incredibly stupid.
GW students-Knapp thinks you don’t have any legal rights!
The story of that student was he was assaulted by a school employee and reported it. The next day, he went to ask UPD if he was off campus. UPD took a hostile approach to a student who could sue the school, and started yelling at him, despite tht he was just politely asking, being concerned for his and other students’ safety from the deranged employee. The student realized he had to tell an administrator, but it was a Saturday. He went to Knapp’s house based on what he had said in several speeches. He politely informed Knapp of the danger to student safety. Knapp called UPD and made-up that he trespassed and threatened him. When he in fact had just rung his door bell and said I’m sorry to bother you but I was assaulted by a school employee and UPD is refusing to do something about it, and the man is crazy and a danger. The student was imprisoned and his parents were told he threatened the President and trespassed on his property. Eventually, they had to admit that he did nothing wrong, but the damage was done, and he had suffered serious physical injuries in custody. Knapp has offered no explanation for what happened, except to say that they can arrest students even if they haven’t committed a crime. Clearly, Knapp committed several crimes-kidnapping, false arrest, false imprisonment, and assault. I swear on my grandparents’ graves that this story is 100% true.
If it wasn’t clear enough, Knapp admitted that the student “did nothing wrong”, as he hadn’t, but others claimed Knapp had said he trespassed and had threatened him, inexplicably. No actual reason was ever given for the illegal arrest, and the university has repeatedly refused to investigate any of the
occurrences. This is the character of our criminal President.