Donations Hit 6-Year Low at CSUN

Despite investing hundreds of thousands of dollars to boost fund-raising, Cal State Northridge last year saw donations fall to their lowest level in at least six years, according to a new Cal State University report.

The campus’ $3.1-million tally during 1994-95 lagged behind both the fund-raising performance of the Cal State University system as a whole and the performance of most other campuses of similar size.

CSUN officials defended their fund-raising record and the increased spending to support it, saying the 1994 Northridge earthquake in part stalled what is now a 2-year-old, high-profile fund-raising campaign. And they promised results soon.

“I’m not disappointed with the progress,” said CSUN President Blenda J. Wilson, who was hired with a mandate to improve CSUN’s historically lagging efforts. “You can’t create a development office today and tomorrow ask someone we haven’t had any relationship with for a lot of dollars,” she said.

Although CSUN was the Cal State system’s sixth-largest campus in enrollment during 1994-95, its $3.1-million fund-raising total ranked 13th among the 21 Cal State campuses in operation that year. And the figure marked a decline of 32% from the campus’ 1989-90 fund-raising tally of $4.6 million.

In contrast, total voluntary giving in the entire Cal State system grew from $88.4 million in 1989-90 to $137.6 million in 1994-95, an increase of 55%. In an era of strained state funding for higher education, Cal State officials have been pressuring campuses to raise more private funds.

The financial data was part of an annual fund-raising report presented Tuesday to Cal State University system trustees at their meeting in Long Beach. Officials there conceded CSUN’s performance has been lagging, but said the campus’ recent efforts deserve more time to succeed.

“I’m not as concerned about it this year. But if we see in the next year or two that it stays at a low figure and doesn’t increase, then I’m concerned,” said Douglas Patino, vice chancellor for university advancement for the Cal State system.

Although there are different methods of comparing campus fund-raising success, Patino said the Cal State system has adopted a systemwide goal that each campus raise in annual donations at least 10% of the general fund money the university receives from the state. By that standard, CSUN fared even worse.

Using that measurement, CSUN last year ranked 18th among 21 Cal State campuses, Patino said. Northridge’s $3.1 million in donations amounted to only 3.3% of the campus’ $95.6 million in state general fund support, ahead of only the Cal State campuses in Bakersfield, Stanislaus and Hayward.

After Wilson arrived as president in mid-1992, with the specific directive of boosting donations to CSUN, she moved to bolster the university’s fund-raising and public affairs functions, adding staff members and resources worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Michael Hammerschmidt, CSUN’s director of university development for the past two years, said his office has added a nearly $100,000 computer system, used to track alumni, and two new staff positions. And several more fund-raisers have been added among CSUN schools.

The university also began an unprecedented mail campaign to alumni and friends, sending up to seven or eight pieces per year. The direct financial appeals reportedly cost the university more to produce than they netted in total donations, one source said.

Hammerschmidt said donations were off last year, in part because of a letdown after a record $7.5 million garnered in 1993-94 amid a public outpouring of support after the Northridge earthquake. And he questioned the accuracy of data in the report that stated CSUN had raised $4 million to $5 million annually in the prior years.

“I have no reason to believe there’s any reliability in those numbers,” Hammerschmidt said, suggesting the campus’ actual donations in prior years probably were more in the $3 million to $4 million range. But he said campus officials knew of the reported data and had not yet raised a complaint.

Although the campus’ current effort remains far below its Cal State system goal of about $10 million, Hammerschmidt said he too is satisfied considering the impact of the earthquake. “I think we’re about where we would expect to be,” he said.

Others on campus privately disagreed, saying CSUN might have missed a golden opportunity to mount an even larger fund-raising campaign--one consultant suggested a $50-million goal--while the campus was in the spotlight. But Hammerschmidt said the school could not have done so.

“We knew internally this was not a good time to do a campaign,” he said. “Both the volunteers and the deans said we’re not ready to do this yet. Northridge did not get into the fund-raising business in a big way until two years ago. Essentially, we were starting from ground zero.”