Fund-raising for Bard College
Bard has always educated the kind of student that tends not to go to Wall Street. They haven’t made buckets of money.” Unlike the best-endowed liberal-arts colleges, such as Amherst, Williams, and Swarthmore, Bard has done little to foster links to the business community. On campus, this has its positive side: the atmosphere is intellectually idealistic and anything but pre-professional. But, unsurprisingly, an excess of critical-theory-reading photography majors doesn’t make for a promising donor pool.
.. Botstein has written that “it is an embarrassment that so much time, effort, emotion, and money are expended on gladiatorial exhibitions.” But, for better or worse, such activities are at the heart of fund-raising. Noah Drezner, an associate professor of higher education at Teachers College, Columbia University, told me, “Studies have shown that former student athletes, even just those who participated in organized college sports, are more likely to give, and give at higher rates.”
.. Instead of appealing to alumni, Botstein’s chief tactic has been to court a few exceptionally wealthy donors. “We’re in the business of looking for large investors,” he told me. “Basically, the people who created the college are Leon Levy, Dick Fisher, and George Soros.”
.. The proliferation of ancillary programs at Bard reflects a fundamental dynamic in today’s nonprofit world. It’s far easier to interest big donors in funding eye-catching initiatives than in funding unglamorous core activities. (At colleges, the latter usually end up being supported by incremental gifts from alumni, parents, and friends.) Many people I spoke to said that Botstein’s great strength as a fund-raiser is that he thinks like a donor.