Fundraising was eighth on a list of 17 issues Chancellor Buzz Shaw identified for his successor in September 2003. When Nancy Cantor arrived at Syracuse University one year later, the ball started rolling on what has since turned into a plan to raise $1 billion for the university.

Part of the struggle, however, is coming up with billion-dollar ideas, which is why Cantor’s ‘scholarship in action’ mission for SU will make or break the fundraising campaign’s success.

‘If all I was doing was the simple task of raising a dollar, one, I would have more time with my family, and two, it would be really boring,’ Cantor said in an interview. ‘One of the things people don’t get is that it’s not just making an ask for money, it’s really dynamically creating a vision for the institution and marketing that vision.’

The current campaign — which has already amassed $350 million — will only be the third of its kind in SU’s history, the last of which ended in 2000 after raising $370 million. The next deadline is $400 million by early November, at which point the campaign will move into its ‘public’ phase — making official its goal, which will likely be in the $1 billion range, said Brian Sischo, associate vice president of development.

But compared to schools of the same academic quality and tuition range as SU, a $1 billion goal seems conservative, especially considering Cantor’s tenacious personality to aim for the top.

‘What’s different about Nancy? It’s Nancy-velocity, it’s energy, it’s enthusiasm,’ Sischo said. ‘We’ve got somebody in Nancy that can motivate.’

Northwestern and Georgetown universities recently completed campaigns of $1.3 billion and $1 billion, respectively. The University of Pittsburgh recently reached the $1 billion mark, and Dartmouth College and Purdue University are both well on their way toward campaigns aiming at more than $1.3 billion, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. A total of 25 colleges were in the middle of capital campaigns with goals of $1 billion or more.

‘Any time you use the ‘billion’ number, that is a significant campaign,’ said Rae Goldsmith, vice president of communications and marketing for Council for Advancement and Support of Education, an organization for those who work in alumni relations, communications and development..

Only 25 schools nationwide currently have active campaigns for $1 billion or more, and they tend to be research institutions, she said.

Goldsmith also warned about the dangers of comparing campaigns among schools — especially because campaigns vary in length. ‘Good fundraising is thinking about ‘What does the institution need, and what does the donor care about and want to support?” she said.

Universities don’t set goals to compete with each other, Goldsmith added.

A $1 billion goal may be more aggressive than it seems, especially given SU’s fundraising campaign history, said Thomas Walsh, senior vice president for Institutional Advancement and Cantor’s point man on the project. The university’s first fundraising campaign wasn’t until the early 1970s and raised a total of $150 million. The most recent campaign, which ended in 2000, fell in the mid to low range nationally, with a $350 million goal.

But Shaw’s 2003 call for $550 million by 2012 did not foresee the costly direction of higher education, which with SU’s medium-sized $950 million endowment, has led to large tuition increases, such as the 5.7 percent increase for the 2007-2008 school year.

The sum of long-term invested funds make up a university’s total endowment, said Louis Marcoccia, SU’s chief financial officer. These funds come when a department or program is endowed by a donation, which means the principal of the gift is invested.

But comparing schools by endowments and relating rising tuition to a need to raise money does not always work, Goldsmith said.

‘Because endowments come through restricted gifts, they don’t serve as an adequate replacement for tuition dollars,’ Goldsmith said by phone from her Washington, D.C., office. But endowments to financial aid funds can help solve the problems caused by rising costs to students.

Tuition and class fees are 41.8 percent of SU’s total revenue, according to a 2006 financial report — Cantor acknowledged the figure should at least be in the 30 percent range.

‘I think it’s very high,’ the chancellor said. ‘Arguably half of the gross of this institution is extensively tuition — we need to raise money.’

Despite the need for funds, Walsh said the key to a successful campaign is in solidifying the mission of the university and making sure all donations go toward that mission — in Cantor’s case — ‘scholarship in action.’

A 2002 article from onphilanthropy.com listed the campaign-planning phase, in which institutional priorities are formed, as the first ‘dirty secret’ of capital campaigns. ‘Campaigns are won or lost before they start,’ the Web site stated.

Cantor’s ‘scholarship in action’ and ‘communities of experts’ catch phrases play directly into what philanthropists want to see done with their money, said Arthur Brooks, a public affairs professor whose book ‘Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Passionate Conservatism’ explores the nature of donations and giving.

‘They want to know about the action as much as they want to hear about the scholarship,’ Brooks said. ‘The question is, ‘how can you do something that’s really going to serve the people who want to give?’ Philanthropists want to create something meaningful because it then gives meaning to their lives.’

The two phrases headline Cantor’s plan to encourage students to take what they learn in the classroom and apply it in the community, and to receive critical input from those successful in the field. This is precisely what encourages wealthy donors — the ability to directly influence what the money is going toward, Brooks said.

‘All campaigns, at the bottom line, will have to be ‘scholarship in action,” said Dean Melvin Stith, of the Martin J. Whitman School of Management. ‘Our ‘scholarship in action’ has been Nancy’s mantra ever since she’s been here.’

What results is the process by which Cantor and the deans target specific trustees, alumni and prior donors with millions of dollars in assets to discuss the possibility of giving again, said Sischo, who keeps a bright yellow countdown timer on his computer’s desktop that ticks away the seconds until the November deadline.

In the campaign’s current state — the ‘silent’ phase — wealthy donors are giving gifts in the millions of dollars to a campaign that has not been completely unveiled. When November arrives, the campaign will target a larger group of donors who can offer smaller contributions.

This is the group that took a hit when alumni disagreed with Cantor’s management of the HillTV incident in fall 2005, Walsh said.

The next several months will determine the campaign’s final goal, Walsh said. ‘We’re not going to set a goal that we don’t think we can meet, nor will we stay with what is conservative,’ he said.

Recent contributions to the campaign include Carmelo Anthony’s $3 million gift for a new basketball training center, a $26.5 million gift from the estate of Frederic N. Schwartz to financial aid funds, and the donation from the EMI Records’ Chairman Martin Bandier to fund the program for music and the entertainment industries in his name.

‘They come around the table because they get the sense that there’s opportunity here for us,’ said Walsh, who oversees the project. ‘They know this is going to be a partnership.’

Interestingly, the best thing to do when a wealthy donor offers to fund something that the university isn’t interested in is to turn it down, regardless of the zeros in the check, said Cantor, Brooks and Dean Stith.

‘The goal is to never lose sight of the intellectual engagement of what our faculty and students both want and would profit from,’ Cantor said. ‘So that we’re not just out there peddling. It’s not ‘Death of a Salesman.”

Cantor defends her push downtown, a notable part of ‘scholarship in action’ best exemplified in the Connective Corridor by saying it all relates back to campus. The corridor is a walking and bus path connecting the SU campus with locations where students are becoming increasingly involved in downtown Syracuse.

‘Everything we’re doing downtown has a parallel investment on campus, every single thing,’ she said in an interview. ‘You can’t point to a thing downtown that we haven’t made a parallel investment in programs and physical structures and faculty on campus,’ she said, referring specifically to artistic stops on the corridor.

These stops include the Syracuse Center of Excellence, which incorporates engineering students, and the Warehouse, which houses the architecture program that has students helping to design its former on-campus home at Slocum Hall.

When Cantor pitched her plan for the Connective Corridor, one of her multi-million-dollar ideas, to corporate and government partners Friday, she mentioned its foundation in the arts and her personal background as a ballet dancer.

Miniature ballet shoes drape against a picture frame on her desk, and in the corner of her office located in Crouse Hinds, a sculpture of a ballerina stands two feet tall in front of a window view of Crouse College, home to the College of Visual and Performing Arts.

To get private donors, corporations and the government to invest in these projects, the chancellor, like a venture capitalist, must simultaneously show success as well as potential, said Brooks, a well-known author on philanthropy. ‘It’s like venture capitalism, except this is venture philanthropy.’

Cantor defined her relationship as a negotiator between the donors, who propose their vision for what the gift should fund, and the deans, who deal with the academic and curricular realities.

‘It’s kind of like I’m a grand middle man, if you will. Or a middle person I guess,’ Cantor said. ‘These are alums of ours, they really care about our students — they want to make sure it’s useful.’

In many cases, the chancellor comes into the conversation at the end of negotiations to seal the deal, Dean Stith said.

‘You bring the chancellor in to close the gift, she’s like the clean-up hitter in baseball,’ he said. ‘A lot of it is to reinforce — it’s at the highest level of the university to give the donor some comfort. To know that we’re really going to accomplish what we said we could accomplish.’

Which is where her sense of optimism for the future of the university comes into play, Sischo said. ‘Do you know anyone who’s more optimistic about Syracuse University?’

‘People give to people who are positive and they can believe have the vision to carry out the mission,’ Stith said.

At most universities, ‘finding the $25-million prospect isn’t the issue, it’s coming up with the 25-million dollar idea,’ Sischo said. ‘In many ways, you can look at our ‘scholarship in action’ vision as our case for support.’

And Cantor hopes her time at SU will not be remembered for the total amount of money she raised, but for the programs her bigger budget allowed for.

‘I really hope it’s a programmatic legacy — the money obviously supports that, right?’ Cantor said. ‘The kinds of engagement with the world we were able to do, the kinds of interdisciplinary programs.’

Published on March 28, 2007 at 12:00 pm