FORT COLLINS — Walk into the Scott Bioengineering Building on the campus of Colorado State University and it’s obvious you’ve stepped into a world-class facility.
The 122,000-square-foot, $69 million structure provides a powerful interplay of light and open space, with inviting study nooks lining the ground floor and top-of-the-line lab space above.
The building, which opened in 2013, is a prime example of the steps CSU wants to continue taking toward critical improvements at its Fort Collins campus. And it is a major reason why the university publicly launched a $1 billion fundraising campaign Saturday night at its annual 1870 Dinner for the school’s top donors.
“There’s a difference between being a good, effective institution and being an exceptional institution,” CSU president Tony Frank said in an interview last week.
This campaign, only the second of its kind conducted by the university in its 146-year history, already is halfway to its goal. The school has raised $500 million in what is known in academic development circles as a “quiet period,” which started in 2013.
Frank said this campaign “changes the game.”
“The CSU we see today is an order of magnitude better than before in its growth and reputation as a comprehensive research university,” Frank said.
The money raised will help fund the construction of new buildings on campus, including the eagerly awaited football stadium and new chemistry and biology buildings, but also will fuel millions of dollars in scholarships and help recruit top faculty.
“There is no greater challenge than providing access and affordability (to prospective students),” Frank said. “Scholarships open up tremendous opportunities for people.”
The campaign announced this weekend doubles the goal the university set a decade ago when it embarked on its first major fundraising effort of $500 million. CSU managed to beat that benchmark by $40 million by the time the campaign wrapped up in 2012.
The new campaign — dubbed “State Your Purpose: The Campaign for Colorado State University” — has a completion date of 2020.
“We don’t have a medical school. We don’t have a law school,” said Tom Milligan, vice president of external affairs for the university. “But we have a powerful research university.”
Besides CSU’s world-renowned veterinary college, the university in recent years has managed to beef up its biomedical, engineering, chemistry and infectious disease programs, the last of which has been doing research on the Zika virus.
The Fort Collins campus now has as many enrolled students (around 32,000) as there are at the University of Colorado, long considered the state’s flagship university.
“CSU today is not the CSU of 10, 20 or 30 years ago,” said Brett Anderson, vice president of University Advancement and a CSU alumnus. “It really is a world-class institution. We both deserve that flagship moniker.”
Fundraising campaigns
Anderson admits that CSU was “way late to the game” in terms of major fundraising efforts. CU has completed four comprehensive campaigns since the mid-1970s. Its most recent one, called Creating Futures, raised $1.5 billion from 2006 to 2013.
Jeremy Simon, executive director of marketing and communications for CU’s Office of Advancement, said CU “salutes” CSU on its campaign launch. A large-scale effort can reap more benefits for an institution than simply the dollars involved, he said.
“Such campaigns can be important because they attract the attention of donors, the university at large and the public at large toward the positive impact and value of supporting higher education,” Simon said. “That importance is increasing, and that value is substantial.”
In large part, he said, the campaign is important because state funding for higher education has not kept pace.
“Donor support is an increasingly critical budget component for all public universities,” Simon said.
CSU’s source of funding has shifted in the past few years. Whereas before 2012 when state funding regularly exceeded private donations raised per year, that dynamic has flipped in the past four years. In the most recent academic year, state funding accounted for just under $110 million of CSU’s budget while private dollars added up to around $172 million.
Anderson said the lion’s share of those private dollars can be credited to a few large donors. He said 95 percent of a campaign’s donations come from just 3 percent to 5 percent of donors. Some of the big donations to CSU in recent years have come from familiar philanthropic names in Colorado, such as cable magnate John Malone, oil and gas entrepreneur Ed Warner and billionaire heiress Pat Stryker.
But Anderson is quick to point out that while most donors to CSU give in smaller amounts, there are a lot more of them than there were 10 years ago, when the first fundraising campaign got underway. There were 23,000 donors in 2005, and last year 40,000 people gave to the university, he said.
“We nearly doubled our support in a decade,” he said.
Anderson said small donors can sometimes be the most effective “ambassadors and advocates” for the university, because they have more word-of-mouth power at cocktail parties or around the office water cooler.
“We value all of them equally,” Anderson said of CSU’s donor base.
Building the donor base
Frank said the most effective way to grow CSU’s contributor base going forward is to provide students with a learning and campus experience that they will see as worthy of their financial support. And to do it as soon as possible.
“Nothing predicts future donor behavior like what they give right after they graduate,” Frank said.
Janisa Garcia, a CSU senior and a graduate of Cherokee Trail High School in Aurora, contributed before she even put on the cap and gown.
Garcia, who is majoring in human development and family studies, works three on-campus jobs for a total of 24 to 30 hours a week. Yet she still makes a point of donating to CSU on a semester basis.
“I wanted to start while I was here so it becomes a habit and continue doing it after I graduate,” she said.
Garcia realizes other private donors are helping to fund her way through school and she owes those around her, along with future students, something in return. After a tough freshman year adjusting to her new life at college, Garcia found that the CSU community rallied behind her and kept her on track.
“My entire experience here is beyond anything I could have imagined,” she said. “I am being supported emotionally, and all the faculty and staff are behind you.”
John Aguilar: 303-954-1695, jaguilar@denverpost.com or @abuvthefold
Updated Feb. 16, 2016 at 3:25 a.m. — Because of a reporter’s error, a story on Page 2A Saturday incorrectly stated the source of funding for Colorado State University’s $16 million equine veterinary clinic, which is planned as part of Denver’s NationalWestern Center. That cost is included in $250 million in financing approved by the legislature for CSU projects at the center.
