Gary A Olson :
Most colleges and universities today have made fundraising a major priority. Public institutions are attempting to compensate for years of slashed state funding, while independent colleges have always known that they cannot exist on tuition alone. The high cost of providing a college education must be offset by external funding, yet colleges increasingly find themselves competing with a range of cultural and charitable organizations for the same scarce donor dollars.
Colleges do have one advantage in that they typically have a pool of dedicated alums proud and sometimes eager to give back to their alma mater, but the advantage ends there. In the minds of many donors, organizations such as zoos, art museums, music halls and symphonic orchestras are far more attractive objects of their largess than the local college.
First of all, supporting the arts is unquestionably a commendable altruistic act in and of itself. Many cultural entities would not survive absent donor support. A city that enjoys a vibrant artistic scene can usually point to a cadre of generous supporters for sustaining it.
But donors sometimes have other reasons for supporting cultural organizations above and beyond the intrinsic good of doing so. Such organizations widely publicize the names of their donors, and this recognition confers on them the mantle of “philanthropist”-supporter of culture and the community at large. As such, there is an incentive of sorts for a donor to make a substantial gift to, say, the local symphonic orchestra because future program guides and other publications or plaques will loudly proclaim that Joe Smith is a “patron” or “sponsor” or “friend” or “supporter” or “sustaining member” of the arts-that is, an “upstanding citizen,” a “pillar of the community.”
Supporting the local college, in contrast, doesn’t ordinarily carry with it the same cachet. Unless you are able to afford a very substantial gift-one, say, that enables you to name a building-most gifts to colleges go unnoticed outside the college campus, except perhaps for the traditional list of donors published annually in the college’s alumni magazine.
Any given community may boast several cultural assets worthy of support, but let’s put things into perspective. Museums, zoos, theaters, and music halls may enrich our lives, but a college changes lives-sometimes thousands of lives each year. Take as a representative example my own institution, Daemen College, a private institution enrolling nearly three thousand students. We give hope to thousands of young people each year, many of whom-like me-are the first in their families to attend college. We give these people a chance-a chance to become a success.
I often tell the story of a prominent member of the college’s Board of Trustees. As a young person, he was headed for a very bad life, with a likely disastrous outcome, but it was Daemen College that took him in, shook him up, and got him to fly right. He is now a hugely successful member of the Buffalo community. This is what I mean about changing lives. Art, exotic animals, music and drama are wonderful-I’ve spent a lifetime devoted to them! But a college such as Daemen changes lives in very substantial and material ways.
Nationwide, there are many private colleges like Daemen-not to mention the hundreds of public institutions-that are similarly changing lives by educating the leaders of tomorrow. As the nation’s students continue to fall behind those of other nations in math, science and reading proficiency, it is time that as a society we reinvest in higher education, both formally through increased financial aid, and informally through private support of our institutions of higher learning.
While it is appropriate to decry the high cost of a college degree or the poor performance of our students vis-à-vis that of other nations, let’s not stop there; let’s do something concrete about these problems. Let’s focus our collective philanthropic efforts on our colleges and their students. Let’s direct our generosity toward the next generation. Let’s, together, change lives-thousands of them!
(Gary A Olson is the President, Daemen College and Columnist)
