Capital Campaigns

Webster University said Tuesday it has wrapped up its multi-million dollar Webster Works fundraising campaign.

The school, which launched the public portion of the campaign in 2010, exceeded its $55 million goal, raising $56.5 million.

Webster Works supports a variety of campus initiatives, including better classrooms, scholarships, endowed professorships and tuition support.

As San Francisco enters the year of the America's Cup, race organizers say they've secured the $12 million needed to clear the city's first crucial fundraising benchmark.

But some of that money came from an unconventional source — an agency within the America's Cup.

To cover the city's costs for the regatta, the America's Cup Organizing Committee, a newly formed team of local entrepreneurs and philanthropists, pledged to raise $32 million over three years.

The University of Southern California is pursuing the most ambitious publicly announced fundraising goal ever in U.S. academia: $6 billion by 2018.

As it gears up for the drive, USC plans to double its fundraising staff by next year, to about 400, officials said. The university has recently opened development offices in San Francisco, New York and Washington and may follow with Chicago and Dallas. It also reaches out to potential donors through alumni offices in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei, Seoul and Mumbai.

Duquesne University has surpassed its $150 million fundraising campaign a year early, the school announced Thursday.

At a holiday luncheon for its employees, university President Charles J. Dougherty said the "Advancing Our Legacy" campaign, scheduled to end in December 2012, has raised $151.3 million.

The fundraising program began in 2004; the Catholic university announced a $150 million goal in 2008, when it had raised $84 million.

Ted Hart speaks with Advanced Certified Fundraising Executive Linda Lysakowski, president and CEO of Capital Venture and author of "Capital Campaigns: Everything You NEED to Know," about capital campaigns on his Nonprofit Coach radio show.

The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center has completed its largest fundraising campaign ever. Thanks to the generosity of supporters across the globe, Making Cancer History®: The Campaign to Transform Cancer Care has raised $1.215 billion.

The campaign reached its original $1 billion mark in August 2010, more than two years ahead of schedule. To fund still-unmet needs, a 19-member campaign executive committee chaired by Harry J. Longwell of Dallas recommended increasing the goal to $1.2 billion, with a shortened target date of Dec. 31, 2011.

A pretty amazing thing happened when the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund regrouped and re-energized its efforts 10 years after it completed its original mission: People remembered. Even after a decade of relative inactivity, the organization's original donors and even their children were ready to help it fund this new mission.

The ACLU's Leading Freedom Forward campaign transformed the organization's mind-set and major- and planned-giving strategies.

In their presentation held on July 28 at the 2010 Bridge Conference in National Harbor, Md., "Marketing and Fundraising for Campaigns, Special Initiatives and Anniversary Celebrations," Jeanne G. Jacob, executive director of Goodwin House Foundation, and Barbara Ciconte, senior vice president of Donor Strategies, offered some great tips for successful fundraising. Here are some highlights.

This FundRaising Success whitepaper will:

• guide you through the crucial feasibility study process
• help you decide who your best prospects are
• introduce you to 10 important factors to consider before embarking on a capital campaign