Harvard Alums: They're Not Giving!
Following the Globe, the Crimson weighs in with its report on Harvard's declining rates of alumni giving.
The article doesn't contain a lot of new information, but it does update the Globe piece in a couple of bemusing ways.
First, vice-president for finance Donella Rapier seems to have learned that it's not wise to concede that President Summers' image problems may be hurting alumni giving, as she did in the Globe.
“A number of people have been incredibly supportive of the president and all he is trying to do, and some have asked questions,” she told the Globe.
President Summers was apparently none too pleased by this display of...well...admitting the obvious.
Now, Rapier tells the Crimson of her “strong sense...that our alumni are highly supportive of the President and his vision for Harvard’s future.”
(Where is Global Language Monitor when you need them?)
In the Globe article, Rapier also suggested that many alumni were hard to reach because they only had cell phones, an assertion about which this blogger was skeptical; I suggested that the presence of e-mail should more than compensate for the miniscule number of alums who don't have landlines.
Perhaps Ms. Rapier reads this blog, because now the Crimson reports that "in their attempts to contact alumni, Harvard fundraisers now face e-mail spam filters...and overflowing e-mail inboxes."
Too funny.
Look, there probably is some correlation between President Summers, who is obviously a divisive figure, and alumni giving. But there may also be more credible explanations that have nothing to do with "e-mail spam filters."
(I mean, come on, people—you are
Harvard. If your fundraising is dependent on not being considered spam, then you've got a serious problem.)
How about the fact that, since 2001, the stock market has either been declining or in the doldrums, and people just don't feel as rich as they did in the 1990s? Or the fact that 2001 marked the departure of a president who'd just completed a huge capital campaign?
If I were trying to explain away declining rates of alumni giving, I'd throw out those explanations, instead of talking about what a challenge cell phones are.
One word of caution to the Crimson: It's time to treat last year's alleged $590 million raised—ostensibly a record—with skepticism. Do you really think that there was no pressure on the relevant parties not to make it look like fundraising was down during Larry Summers'
annus horribilis?
From what I hear, these numbers are more cooked than a chicken in China....
