The Renaissance at Rensselaer: The Campaign for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, which began its public phase last September, is now beginning the long haul towards the campaign’s $1 billion goal for the end of 2008. According to Terri Cerveny, Assistant Vice President of Development and Alumni Relations, the campaign has already taken in over $600 million in donations and pledges.
The campaign began back in July of 2000, shortly after President Shirley Ann Jackson was appointed, and within a year, a landmark unallocated gift of $360 million was anonymously pledged to be donated over a period of several years from an individual. As of the end of last month, a total of $638.6 million had been raised as part of the campaign, according to its website.
In an effort to rally a broad base of alumni support for the campaign, Jackson and several student and faculty representatives have visited New York, Hartford, Boston, Florida, Los Angeles, and San Jose in the past year. Starting March 28, she will also be visiting Beijing, Hong Kong, and Kuala Lumpur as well as Washington, D.C., and Chicago. These visits are meant to highlight not only RPI’s role in the world scientific community, but promote alumni solidarity domestically as well as abroad.
According to Cerveny, this capital campaign corresponds directly with The Rensselaer Plan, which details capital improvements and changes to RPI in general over the years since it was adopted. The monies raised from the Renaissance at Rensselaer campaign, will go primarily to improvements of existing RPI holdings, research in areas such as Biotechnology and Information Technology, and funding in areas of scholarship and fellowship endowment. Cerveny pointed out that funds raised in the campaign did not go towards the construction of the Biotechnology Center or EMPAC, as their construction was paid for via borrowing.
Cerveny said donors, especially some of RPI’s more philanthropically-inclined ones, like to see results, and indicated that students and faculty have been exemplary in this regard. Students from organizations such as the Red and White have generously given their time to show visiting alumni around the campus. Faculty have taken time from their research endeavors to convey their enthusiasm for new research to benefactors. Donors are kept updated on the progress their gift is making, whether putting a new engineering student through RPI or funding an innovative research Constellation.
Additionally, many alumni are being invited to Renaissance at Rensselaer weekends (Thursday through Sunday stays), during which they are re-exposed to the RPI campus, dine with the President, tour the campus with students, and witness many professors’ research endeavors. The Development and Alumni Relations office is currently trying to broaden the program to even more of RPI’s 85,000 alumni worldwide.
Traditionally, Development and Alumni Relations could only reach the largest donors directly, and had to depend on mailings and phone calls for the far more numerous smaller donors. With the help of students and a bit of computer technology, though, they are not only able to personalize and update material on demand for many donors, but also reach out to communities of alumni through a nationwide alumni network that volunteers to coordinate the help of their classmates in the campaign and various alumni events.
With four years remaining in the campaign, and over 60 percent of the funds committed, the Development and Alumni Relations office is exploring a relatively new segment of donors that are giving significantly above average, but not in six-figure amounts. These alumni, when they work together, may have the potential to significantly contribute to the campaign. “Donors, especially those in education, will rally their support behind a leader with a vision, a plan, and the means to carry it out,” said Cerveny, “and RPI has all three.”
