Georgetown University’s most successful fundraising campaign now has a more ambitious goal and an extended deadline, but it still hasn’t raised the money needed for some of the school’s most urgent projects, according to university officials.

The Third Century Campaign has already exceeded the expectations of its leaders and is expected to raise twice its original goal, but in his faculty convocation address last week, University President Leo J. O’Donovan, S.J., underscored the need to refocus fundraising efforts on the campaign’s original core priorities.

“Some might call this a `meat and potatoes’ campaign, which is exactly what our diet requires right now,” O’Donovan said, as he unveiled plans to raise the campaign’s goal to one billion dollars and extend its deadline to June 2003.

Begun in the summer of 1995 with a target of $500 million, the campaign aimed to improve the university’s endowment, facilities, programs and annual fund, according to Michael Goodwin, vice president for alumni and university relations.

And now, after raising over $600 million, university officials are pinning their hopes to reach one billion dollars on a fresh batch of potential donors.

“We have a very large, unmined core of major donor prospects that we’re only beginning to reach,” O’Donovan said.

One of the campaign’s strengths has been its ability to match donors’ interests with their gifts’ destinations, Goodwin said. For instance, crew alumni could donate to the new boathouse or business school alumni could donate to the proposed graduate business school building.

But this so-called affinity matching has ensured that 95 percent of the gifts received during the campaign have been directed to destinations chosen by the donors. And the donors are not always willing to guide their gifts to Georgetown’s most pressing needs, Goodwin said.

They are especially reluctant to contribute to construction projects, including the Southwest Quadrangle, which Goodwin described as being the current top priority for campaign fundraisers.

Originally expected to cost $20 million, the 780-bed dormitory complex is now projected to cost $50 million. About $27 million have been raised for the complex, which will also include a new cafeteria and Jesuit residence, Goodwin said.

Besides the Southwest Quad, proposed projects, such as the graduate business school building and the science center, are also dramatically lacking funds.

Only half of the needed $40 million has been raised to build the business school building, which is likely to replace parking lot T on the former baseball field. The science center, which will not be started until the Southwest Quad is completed, only has $11 million of the $38 million the project is expected to require.

Last week’s announcement marked the second time in two years that the board of directors approved an increased campaign goal. According to Goodwin, O’Donovan and the board of directors approved a recommendation from the Third Century Campaign Steering Committee last May, which called for the extended campaign timeline and financial target. But the group decided to wait for the new academic year to make the announcement public.

The new campaign deadline will now extend beyond O’Donovan’s tenure, which will conclude in June 2001.

“Fr. O’Donovan sees [the campaign] as a personal challenge, and he has set the stage for our achieving the billion dollar goal. His successor will have to show his commitment to resource development, and he is sending that message clearly with his decision,” Goodwin said.

The new target comes closer to matching the billion-dollar list of needs created by faculty in 1994 during the campaign’s planning phase, where administrators met with university faculty members to assess and prioritize university-wide needs.

Already, the campaign has resulted in 70 new financial aid endowments and 39 new faculty chairs and professorships, including the Caestecker Chair of Music, filled by Jose Bowen, and the Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Chair in Catholic Social Thought, filled by John P. Langan, S.J.

The campaign has resulted in a 20 percent boost in the university’s endowment, which at $750 million is still well below the average among Consortium on Financing Higher Education schools, a group of colleges and universities to which Georgetown belongs that includes many of the nation’s most presitigious schools.

“Georgetown got into [endowment boosting] late. Harvard had a campaign dedicated specifically to raising the endowment in 1900,” Goodwin said.

The Third Century Campaign has established a new model of fundraising at Georgetown, Goodwin said. Across the country, schools are finding that the most effective way to raise funds is through long-term, major capital campaigns – Princeton just completed a $1.14 billion campaign, and Harvard is aiming for $2.3 billion in its ongoing campaign.

At Georgetown, last year marked the most successful fund-raising year in university history, with $86 million raised in cash and $170 million raised between cash and pledges.

Alumni giving – an area that has traditionally been lower at Georgetown than most of the schools with which the university competes for students – has risen almost 10 percent during the campaign.

Goodwin said giving has increased among all donor groups – from the Blue and Gray society of $10,000 donors, which has risen from 200 to almost 1,500 in the last three years, to the senior class, which had all-time high participation in the senior class gift last year. The senior class gift, along with all donations to the university during the campaign, goes toward the campaign total, regardless of what department or program the donations support.

According to Goodwin, the increased giving is one way that the campaign has improved Georgetown’s statistics for the annual U.S. News and World Report ratings. Although, he said, these improvements are only side-benefits of the campaign.

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