<p>Poplicola:</p>
<p>Your most recent elaboration bolsters your earlier point - that alumni donation is important, but a piece of the puzzle (and certainly, a piece that’s quite significant). (Your earlier posts, at least to me, didn’t seem to explore fundraising as a multi-faceted process, but rather focused on the alumni donations piece pretty much exclusively). </p>
<p>There seem to be systemic deficiencies in UChicago’s fundraising performance. Perhaps, as others have mentioned, its because alumni interest bleeds into foundational support, and if UChicago alums are more apathetic, the foundational support will be too. Maybe that’s the reason.</p>
<p>You also raised the issue of fundraising campaigns, and you’re correct that many of these schools are in major campaigns. The timing of a campaign - as well as the existence of a campaign - is of key significance. Usually, UChicago plays catch-up here too, because it’s major campaigns start AFTER the campaigns at other major universities. Here’s last year’s article on the issue:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20120526/ISSUE01/305269979/universities-prep-for-fundraising-test[/url]”>Universities prep for fundraising test;
<p>As seen there, the development office itself has issues at UChicago. THe unexpected resignation of a key leader in the office probably isn’t good, and the fact that the last campaign lagged and was extended isn’t a good sign either. </p>
<p>It’ll be great if UChicago announces a new $5B campaign. The last campaign was bold too, but unlike many of its peers - who generally exceed the goals of a campaign (see Stanford, Penn, Yale, etc.) - UChicago doesn’t have the best track record here, at least over the past 15 years or so.</p>
<p>And I’m really not sure why.</p>