Thu 5 Jun 2008
Alumni fundraising of yore
Posted by JG under Alumni, Endowment, Faculty, Williams History
Posted at 2:33 pmEven as far back as 1913, Williams was doing its best to establish a nest egg for the future. An article in the wonderful New York Times archives describes then-President Garfield’s announcement of a $2 million endowment effort. True to form, he already had about 25% lined up and more pledged to match. This effort was announced at the “alumni luncheon” following commencement. I wonder if Morty will have any exciting announcements this weekend during reunions?
I continue to enjoy the fact that Williams College news made it to the New York Times with great regularity back in the day. Including such exciting events as the alumni beating the varsity basketball team in a game. Yes, really. I can’t find the link again at the moment, but it was great. In the 1920s, someone wrote in with that bit of news - including the roster and some form of a box score from the game - and it was published in the Times.
You can see the article in its original form (scanned a little crookedly, but readable) here.
WILLIAMS SEEKS $2,000,000.
President Garfield at Commencement Tells Endowment Plans.WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., June 25 — At the alumni luncheon following the commencement exercises at Williams College to-day, President Harry A. Garfield announced that the college would attempt to obtain an endowment fund of $2,000,000. Half of the first million appeared to be in sight, he said. The General Education Board of New York, Rockefeller Foundation, had offered $100,000 when the college should raise $500,000. Mrs. Russell Sage had contributed $50,000, and $200,000 more had been promised conditionally. To this, President Garfield said, $150,000 might be added from an estate over which litigation recently ended.
The need for $1,000,000, Dr. Garfield said, was immediate, as that sum would hardly do more than make up the annual deficit, and a second million must be had to do justice by the teaching force and the future. The college, he pointed out, had prospered by buildings presented, but giving for endowment had not been popular and the faculty as a result had been kept on low pay.
President Garfield said that while the salaries of the teachers at Williams had increased more than $50,000 in the last twelve years, the maximum paid to any professor was only $500 in excess of the amount paid in 1900, and the largest amount now received by any professor was $3,200. The President believed desirable to raise the maximum at once to $4,000, with corresponding increases to all professors and assistant professors.
Williams graduated 115 young men with the degree of bachelor of arts. Among the honorary degrees conferred were these: Doctor of Laws, Charles B. Wheeler, ‘73, of Buffalo, a Justice of the New York Supreme Court; Master of Arts, Albert Rathbone, ‘88, lawyer of New York.
Copyright (c) The New York Times, originally published June 26, 1913
Thoughts on professor salaries as an effective fundraising ploy? Did everyone notice the names of those donors? I would love to know whose estate was being challenged - possibly over the gift to Williams? Any Williams history buffs know what famous alum or former prof died sometime around 1913?
I’d also like to say that this shows some shrewd planning by somebody. Capitalizing on the strength of our alumni to start building those funds way back when undoubtedly built a foundation for the massive pile of cash we’re sitting on today. Granted, Williams graduated a lot of young men from old money families, so this kind of strategy was likely old hat to them although it seems practically clairvoyant to those of us brought up without trust funds, family homes, and other such personal “endowments.”
8 Responses to “ Alumni fundraising of yore ”
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September 9th, 2008 at 6:22 am[...] those great posts by JG featuring old New York Times articles about Williams? I do! (Examples here and here.) Yet the right response whenever you want JG, me or any other EphBlog author to do [...]
June 5th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
At least Williams wasn’t hit with the decision Swarthmore faced in 1907, when a weathy old woman offered a bequest in her will of coal mines thought to be worth in excess of $1 million.
There was a condition attached. Swarthmore had to discontinue all intercollegiate athletics and agree to [b]never[/b] participate in intercollegiate athletics.
Following that story in the NY Times is a riot. $1 million was a lot of money. Swarthmore wrote to college presidents across the country asking their opinion. Columbia’s President wrote back:
At one point, Swarthmore considered becoming an all-women’s college to accept the bequest on the grounds that women don’t participate in sports. But, the NY Times wrote that this would eventually fail:
The College ultimately turned down the bequest after engineering studies showed that it was worth much less than reported. I think, however, the money may have been backdoor’d to Swarthmore anyway. The will sent the money to the Philadelphia Society of Friends if Swarthmore declined. The NY Times hints at a backroom deal to eventually transfer the money from the Friends to the College.
The period from 1900 to 1950 is really interesting for these hoity-toit colleges. Carnegie, Rockefeller, and the other big industrialists were throwing money around right and left and much of what all these schools became grew from this time frame. For example, most of them dropped their prior religious affiliations because Carnegie refused to give money to sectarian colleges.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
And of course the big decision that determined the future of these colleges was whether or not to offer the newly popular PhD degree. Those that did became universities. Those that didn’t remained liberal arts colleges.
June 5th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
hwc: Now that is interesting stuff
June 5th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Great post, JG. Thank you for doing all the research.
June 5th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
JG:
You seem to be the resident history buff of EB. I learn so much from the posts you come up with. A walk through the Williams cemetery might yield some clues as to the mystery alum/prof.
And hwc’s story is hilarious. That NY Times quote about what “induces a woman” sounds so dated…although I think it was Dowd who said much the same thing about Hillary’s…um…tenacity.
June 5th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
So, if you were Morty, would you dump varsity sports for a $1 billion endowment gift?
Tough decision, huh? I mean, you would hate to set a precedent of letting old coot’s dictate to the college. But, a billion here and a billion there; pretty soon you are talking about real money.
I’d probably do it and go tuition-free. Now that would rock the hoity toity college industry, huh?
June 5th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Well, as any Williams graduate knows—or should know—Williams created the first Society of Alumni, charged with raising money to help the college out after a couple of bounders left Williams to start a college in the Connecticut River valley named after some Lord. So Williams’ history of fund raising has been a long one.
Until the 1970’s and 80’s, fundraising at Williams and similar colleges was pretty much passing the hat around the old boys’ network. (For example, at the height of the Great Depression, the Trustees decided that Williams needed some squash courts [even though professors' salaries had been cut by 10% and not yet restored]. Rather than do something as laborious and time consuming as go to the alumni base for funding, they just passed the hat around the table, and by the end of the afternoon they had all of the necessary money.)
Once alumni offices adopted computerized systems, alumni fundraising became much more professional and broadly based. At this point there are yield reports and data mining and alumni worth portals, all to help alumni offices figure out which alum they should ask for money and when (e.g., when the alum executes some stock options is a good time; when the alum’s net worth has plunged 20% is a bad time).