As Resource Development considers how best to build on the success of the past year, it is important to acknowledge the Institute's history and traditional fundraising strengths and to look to opportunities that will lay the foundation for even stronger support in the decades ahead. In an era where MIT will increasingly rely on philanthropic support to sustain and enhance its preeminence in science and technology, we must continue to form new partnerships with individual donors, corporations and foundations world wide to achieve our goals. The achievements and results of this past year provide an important guide to the years ahead.
Over the past year, staffing remained relatively stable. During the year there were 14 promotions (5 men and 9 women, including 2 minorities). In addition, 9 open staff positions were filled including 5 women (1 African-American woman). Resource Development maintained a strong commitment to the hiring and promotion goals set out in our Affirmative Action report by working closely with Personnel and others to identify new resources from which to draw applicants. In addition, in collaboration with the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), a research-based minority internship was created and filled.
Sources of gifts for Fiscal Year l996 were: alumni, $47.1 million; non-alumni friends, $16.4 million; corporations, corporate foundations, and trade associations, $29.3 million; foundations and charitable trusts, $29.5 million; and others, $1.3 million.
Donors designated expendable and endowed funds as follows: unrestricted, $27.6 million; departments, $36.9 million; faculty salaries, $20.6 million; graduate student aid, $6.3 million; undergraduate student aid, $16.8 million; building construction funds, $7 million; and other funds $8.4 million.
Barbara G. Stowe
Three members of the field staff left to pursue other opportunities and Betsy Millard moved to part-time status to continue to manage the Emma Rogers Society. Christine Rinaldi was hired to manage the New York Metro region and Alexander (Sandy) Washburn joined her as a senior major gifts officer. Stephanie Harriston-Diggs added management of the Mid-Atlantic South region to her existing New York Metro responsibilities. Direction of the West Coast and Pacific Rim region was assumed by David Woodruff, who came from the Office of Corporate Relations. Maryglenn Vincens, from the Alumni Association and Alex Chisholm, from Development Research and Systems, joined him as major gifts officers for this region. John Landry, former associate director for New England, took on the planned giving responsibilities and added the Great Plains region to his prospect management responsibilities.
Following the Campaign Feasibility Study, George Ramonat headed a council to assess MIT's ability to increase volunteer participation in the gift-getting process, one of five such councils established to better gauge MIT's fundraising opportunities.
During the year the Corporation Development Committee (CDC) redefined its mission with the help of the steering committee, renamed the CDC Advisory Group, to clarify their role as Institute volunteers.
At the annual meeting in November 1995 President Vest and Provost Moses engaged the attending members in a highly energized dialogue focusing on current Institute challenges and the opportunities for financial support now and into the future. Jack Crowley, director of MIT's Washington, DC office, emphasized the importance of President Vest's efforts to confront the federal support issues MIT faces in Washington.
The Advisory Group met in April 1996 to discuss the findings of the Campaign Feasibility report and MIT's need for increased volunteer support in its fundraising efforts.
H.E. Ramonat
Under the direction of Lucy Miller, this office managed the cultivation, solicitation and stewardship of the most generous donors to the Institute.
As a result of working closely with President Vest, Chairman Gray, Provost Moses, the Deans, senior administration and faculty, and colleagues throughout MIT, key initiatives were realized this year with the support of MIT's alumni/ae and friends. The strength of funding for junior and full professorships was extraordinary for a non-campaign year and demonstrated enormous commitment to the intellectual capital of the Institute. In addition, the dedication of the Stella Room and Elliot K. Wolk Gallery, and the Jack C. Tang Center for Management Education reflected a growing understanding among our most generous donors of the ongoing importance of renewing the physical plant of MIT.
Finally, given the central importance of principal giving to any expanded fundraising effort, Lucy Miller guided the inquiry of the Principal Gifts Council as they framed the opportunities and challenges of deepening and strengthening MIT's relationships with its most significant supporters.
Lucy V. Miller
This office, headed by Elizabeth Harding, continued to provide editorial support for fundraising, plan fundraising events, and coordinate major gift stewardship at MIT.
The editorial group worked with individual, corporate, and foundation front-line staff to write and edit newsletters, proposals, special letters, and brochures. Spectrum, a 16-page tabloid newsletter, is a principal project of the office and has a circulation of 32,000, including donors to MIT, faculty and staff at the Institute. Other ongoing publications included a series of eight full-page advertisements in Technology Review which profiled alumni/ae who established life income funds, and brochures including: MIT Facts, Ways of Giving, Undergraduate Scholarships: Making a Difference, and Science at MIT. In addition, the staff worked closely with the Office of Principal Gifts and the Office of the Corporation to produce the materials for the dedication of the Jack C. Tang Center for Management.
Within the Office of Communications and Donor Relations (COMDOR), the Office of Events helped organize 48 Resource Development events including spring and fall Campus Visits, two 2 1/2 day programs for donors and prospective donors. Other highlights include: a California Leadership Dinner, the dedication of the Elliot K. Wolk Gallery, and the opening of the MIT Sloan School of Management Trading Room. The staff with the Office of the President and several faculty produced a Senior Congressional Staff Seminar in the spring of 1996.
COMDOR continued to refine and expand a systematic stewardship program. This year reports provided information about student recipients and fund performance to 150 scholarship donors and 6 donors to the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program. The stewardship staff worked in concert with the Office of Events on small stewardship events to bring together the donors and the student beneficiaries of the gifts.
Elizabeth T. Harding
Under the direction of Shelley Brown, this office provided critical research, information, analysis and systems support to help facilitate a stronger understanding of the Institute's base of private support.
The staff continued a series of impact studies to understand the effect of MIT's alumni/ae, faculty and staff on specific regions and on particular industries. Regional profiles focused on the Silicon Valley, Southern California, Connecticut, Florida, Missouri, Ohio and other states with a strong Congressional presence. In addition to last year's impact study on the biotech industry, industrial profiles focused on financial services and venture capital firms. A report analyzing the impact of MIT-research and MIT-founded companies on the software industry is in progress.
In one of five inquiries to follow on the work of the Campaign Feasibility Study and assess the possibilities of an expanded fundraising program, Shelley Brown chaired the effort to better understand the composition and potential of the individual prospect pool. To support the efforts of all the inquiries, the staff provided extensive data and analysis of the giving potential of the different prospect segments.
Working with the Treasurer's Office and the CAO, this office helped program several necessary revisions to bring the Institute in conformity with new standards issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board. In addition, to provide greater clarity about the Institute's philanthropic support, the staff also revised the Private Support Summary.
In collaboration with the Bank of Boston, the staff continued work on the New Founders Project and expects the Bank to issue a report in Fall 1996 on the economic and social impact of companies founded by MIT alumni.
In partnership with the Alumni/ae Association and the Treasurer's Office, the office continues to spearhead the conversion to a new alumni/ae development client-server system, currently targeted for completion by the close of FY97.
The above initiatives were carried out in addition to the office's primary responsibilities which include: research support for fundraising activities of the senior officers, fundraising support for the Office of Individual Giving, the school development officers, the recording secretary, and the Alumni/ae Association; the National Screening Program, and ongoing technology and programming support for Resource Development.
This past year two staff members left to pursue other opportunities at the Institute. Else Slepecky was hired as a Research Analyst and Alex Midler was hired to the position of Analyst Programmer II. Lillian Paratore was promoted to the administrative staff position of Administrative Manager, and Marc Gunderson was promoted to the position of Systems Specialist. In addition, through the efforts of John Solmonese, the office worked with CASE to create a research-based minority internship.
Shelley Brown
Under the direction of John S. Wilson, gifts from private foundations for this fiscal year totaled more than $30 million, down 11% from FY95, and continued to provide significant support for MIT's educational and research programs. Major grants or pledges were received in support of the Daniel K. Ludwig Professorship, the MIT International Science and Technology Initiative (MISTI), the Museum Art Loan Project, and the Youth Focused Community Fellows Program. Anne Marie Michel was promoted to Associate Director of Foundation Relations.
The Office of School Development Services (OSDS) continued to provide support to the five schools and the Office of Academic Development for their fundraising initiatives. The primary areas of support include: prospect research and identification, stewardship, proposal writing, qualification calls, donor events, and systems design. Kevin Holland was promoted from Development Research and Systems to Senior Research Analyst in OSDS.
Highlights of OSDS support included: A 50% increase in membership of $1000+ donors to the Dean's Council of the School of Architecture and Planning and the coordination of an open house for SAP headquarters in the fall. The Sloan team helped to plan and execute the successful Tang Center dedication and continued to assist in fundraising activities for the Zenon Zannetos Professorship Fund. The team for the School of Science welcomed John Christel as Senior Research Analyst and supported the successful campus visit in the spring, creating $900,000 in new gifts and pledges to the school. The team for the School of Humanities and Social Science, newly headed by Pamela Lomax, met with every department head to discuss prospects and conduct screenings.
Members of the School of Engineering team focused on recruiting and training volunteers for the Bisplinghoff Chair, which now has $200,000, and Mary Hanifin and Greta Morgan worked closely with the School Development Officer and the Dean to create a Dean's book of potential prospects. They are currently creating similar books for each of the department heads.
In the fall, support was provided to the Provost's Office and MISTI to host Madame Deng Nan of China and representatives from 15 corporations as a follow-up to discussions held the previous summer at the International Conference of Sustainable Development and Environment. Support was also provided to the Provost for the Chlorine conference in June, sponsored by the Alliance for Global Sustainability.
The office completed a full series of academic department profiles and funding opportunities for each school. In addition, primers to summarize key academic initiatives by school were completed on 13 projects, including the Minority Introduction to Engineering and Science (MITES) and the MIT Washington Summer Internship Program. These materials served as resources across the Institute and provided in-depth information to development staff about academic initiatives and programs. Information about academic initiatives was also communicated through the monthly FYI series sponsored by OSDS. Featured presenters included, Joel Moses, Ed Barrett, Steve Lippard, Dave Marks, Paul Asquith, Tom Eager, and Bish Sanyal.
John S. Wilson, Jr.
Under the direction of Thomas R. Moebus, corporate cash gifts to MIT this fiscal year totaled $29.3 million, down 16% from FY95. During this time Corporate Relations worked to expand and strengthen corporate partnership development; to maximize revenues to support Institute-wide and School-based faculty initiatives, international regional opportunities, and sponsored research; to rebuild the membership of the Industrial Liaison Program (ILP) and improve ILP product and service quality. This was accomplished while streamlining ILP Member Relations, creating a New Business Development Team and consolidating Communications, Information Services, Personnel and Finance into an Operations Unit.
The Corporate Development group continued to support Institute and faculty initiatives including, the Alliance for Global Sustainability, the Competitive Product Development Center, and Leaders for Manufacturing. They worked to expand significant international activities in Argentina, Spain, and Taiwan while pursuing new opportunities in areas such as Thailand. A project developed jointly with the Technology Development Program established a new $4.5 million annual program of research, education and institution building in Thailand. A world wide web site was established to provide better access to information for industry, MIT faculty and staff.
With its new sales staff, the Industrial Liaison Program garnered eleven new memberships in the United States, nine in Europe, five in the Asia-Pacific region and one in South America. New members represent a range of industries including chemicals, manufacturing, electronics, scientific instruments, energy, and the service sector. As evidenced by mergers, particularly in the defense industry, and decreasing memberships, especially in Europe, the current business climate continues to present a challenge to maintaining the ILP membership base. Overall, the total membership and fee base remained constant and final ILP revenues for FY96 were $7.3 million.
Corporate Relations sponsored several events. The "Technology and the Corporation" conference series in 1995-96 which covered topics ranging from Investing in China, Telemedicine, and Compression Technologies to Reengineering, Environmental Strategies for Industry, and Electronic Commerce. Two additional events of note include the Research Director's Conference in April and the MIT-ILP European Members Workshop, held in May in Paris. Over 1,500 representatives from 700 companies attended ILP events during the year, with an additional 200 "remote" attendees participating through video-conferencing. A record number of non-members (close to 500) attended on a paid basis through a collaboration with a conference promotion agency, the Center for Management Research.
During the last year, five members left Corporate Relations to pursue other opportunities, two accepted early-retirement and one member took an educational leave-of-absence. Two Industrial Liaison Officers, Anddie Chan and Robert Malster, realigned their efforts within Corporate Development and Ms. Chan was promoted to Senior Liaison Officer. Nat Mayes, of the Sloan School of Management, joined Corporate Development one-quarter time. Carlos Arcos `81 joined Corporate Development to assist with initiatives in Latin America. Priscilla Whoolery and Michael Healy were hired as Research Analysts. William Culbert was promoted to Principal Liaison Officer. Carl Accardo was promoted to Manager of Corporate Relations Asia Pacific Operations. Bruce Anderson and Imee Jackson were hired to market and solicit memberships to the ILP. Jackie Womble and Margaret Duke were promoted to Information Specialists. Margaret Gonzalez was hired as Manager of Corporate Relations for Communications. Susan Shansky was promoted to Director of Operations and Lisa Bartolet was promoted to Assistant Director of Operations.
Thomas R. Moebus
MIT Reports to the President 1995-96