<p>From today's WSJ:</p>
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At least four major donations to Harvard, totaling $390 million, have been scrapped or put on hold since Mr. Summers announced his resignation in February, according to people familiar with the matter
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<p>WSJ online is a paid subscription service. For the complete article see:</p>
<p>Maybe so, but fundraising under Summers was not so great. </p>
<p>So, I predict a drop this year followed by a good rise when his successor is on board, especially since fund raising clout will be a major selection factor.</p>
<p>The article also states that the percentage of alumni donors went down.</p>
<p>It will be interesting to see who Harvard names as their new leader.</p>
<p>In fund-raising campaigns, there is a lot of strategy on the part of both development offices and donors. Individual donors will want to count their donation against their class contribution, for example, so it makes sense to delay donations until a fund-raising campaign kicks off. </p>
<p>Some major donors are obviously genuinely upset that Summers resigned. Others seem more in a wait and see mode. It should be noted that Summers' troubles delayed the kick-off of the new fund-raising campaign. Before his troubles began, however, there had been grumbles that he was not doing as well in fund-raising as expected. In fact, I heard from a CC poster that he alienated some alumni at what was supposed to have been a fund-raising event; that was before his gender-related remarks were uttered.
I'm expecting that any new president would continue to push the development of sciences. That was not what the FAS faculty was upset about. But there are still major issues to be resolved regarding the Allston campus, not least because the City of Boston and the neighborhood have plenty to say about what gets built there.</p>
<p>Fundraising is obviously as important as unending. </p>
<p>However, does anyone doubt that, based on its earning prowesses, Harvard may finally display the same numbers as the Gates Foundation. At the end of FY 2005, H was only a few billions away for becoming the largest charitable -or at least non profit- organization in the world.</p>
<p>My uneducated guess is that Harvard is still the most formidable fund rasing machine, and that the billions will flow back to Cambridge, especially when the St Charles project start taking shape and form. </p>
<p>After all, since Everett McKinley Dirksen, don't we know that "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you're talking real money".</p>
<p>I think some alums are starting to feel that H does not really need any more money and it would do more good to contribute to other worthy causes.</p>
<p>Possibly; alumni are allowed to earmark their donations toward financial aid, and many of my classmates choose that option. </p>
<p>I don't view giving to Harvard as a "worthy cause" like other charities. I give because I think I owe them something; I was given so much more than I paid for. As far as amounts, though, I give far more money to my singing groups at Harvard than I give to either the college or the law school, because my debt is the same, and the money has a much greater impact.</p>
<p>Likewise. I designate money to the libraries, art history, and minority scholarships. The business school has enough friends. Typically I get a nice handwritten note from the art history head wondering why I gave money to them as I was never officially in a class there.</p>
<p>I give money (a tiny pittance) to my alma mater yearly, and still with misgivings. They really, really, really don't need the money. I can earmark it for scholarships, but, honestly, all that does is help ensure they don't have to put any real money behind them (though, frankly, mine doesn't make any difference - it's pocket change, and probably costs them more in bookkeeping than I give them.)</p>
<p>Every year I question it (for the amount of money I give, I can feed an entire family that I know in one of the villages of my India projects for an entire month!), but I haven't gotten up the heart to write them a long letter as to why I think my giving them anymore is really not a good idea.</p>
<p>Yesterday, quite literally, I received a personal e-mail - meant specifically for me - from the Mutaho Widows Cooperative in Burundi, asking for money for 12 goats. The goats cost 30 dollars a piece, and deworming and medications $13, for a total of $510. The coop, made up of 54 women widowed by genocide there, has been working to help these women, some with children, who have recently left the refugee camps, get their lives back together. I discovered that the main purpose of the goats is not for milk (or occasionally for meat), but because the land is so ravaged, they need the goat manure, and bean yields triple when they have it. I wrote back and asked why not 54 goats (one for every member), and they wrote back that this would be unfair, when there are so many people who have nothing. So we agreed I would raise the funds for 27 goats, with an understanding that first-born she-goats from this 27 would be given to other coop members until they all had one. Now I have to come up with $1,161. It's difficult to worry about Harvard's financial difficulties.</p>
<p>(Those who would like to buy a goat should write me privately.)</p>
<p>You would be surprised at what that pittance in donations will do for the school. D was making fundraising calls this past year (not for H) and they were told that even if someone gave $1.00 it would help because there are so many grants out there that are based on percentage of alumni donating. (This was the pitch to the newly graduated, since they were just starting out, and many still had loans to pay.) It doesn't matter how much - it matters how many!</p>
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<blockquote> <p>I'm expecting that any new president would continue to push the development of sciences. That was not what the FAS faculty was upset about. </p> </blockquote>
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<p>As I understand it from hearing Harry Lewis speak on the issue, many of the science professors were concerned about Summers' "science initiative". They saw his plans as being effectively a program to massively fund a new commercial biotech R&D corporation, with virtually nothing earmarked for science education. The result, among some of the FAS, would be even further dilution of focus on teaching science and a further shift towards professors as entreprenuers and consultants -- a trend that is viewed as an increasingly negative situation for education. I think this "corporatization" of the univeristy is a particular risk to institutions, such as Harvard, with governing boards that are so heavily Wall Street oriented.</p>
<p>Yes, you are right. It was not a sciences vs. humanities issue. Some of the most vocal critics of Summers were scientists. Unlike Lewis, they could not be accused of sour grapes. Although Summers has earned plaudits for championing undergraduate education, there was real concern that he was pushing the university along a more profit-making model. Some branches of science were going to benefit far more than others under Summers plan. I gather that he was quite disdainful of certain branches, and, of course, riled a lot of scientists.</p>