Reunion giving up 43 percent

Usually a time for such games of skill as Spot-the-Greatest-Weight-Gain and Try-to-Remember-Foxfield, UVA Reunions Weekend have adopted a more serious purpose in recent years—namely, they are increasingly becoming fundraising occasions for the University. At more than $42 million, the 2006 giving, culminating with June’s reunion events, represented a 43 percent increase over 2005 figures. And, with the September launch of UVA’s $3 billion capital campaign close on the horizon, every dollar counts.
    “Compared to private schools, where reunion giving has been part of the culture since they were founded, it’s been relatively new for us,” says Christine Knight, UVA’s director of reunion giving. In 1997, the benchmark year, gifts from reunion classes totaled only $3 million.
    With a welcoming slogan (“Your gift counts and so do you!”), the “message of reunion giving is important,” says Knight. “Someone not in a high-income field knows their participation is valued,” she says.
    But just to drive home that point, the reunions office, which coordinates 10 class reunions annually, has steadily boosted the quality of its programming. Neighbors in the Alderman Road area are unlikely to soon forget the thunder of fireworks exploding over the Rotunda. That, dear readers, was the sound of checks being written.
    Not that it’s all about diversions. Jason Life directs reunions programming, and though he says he’s “not sure how programming affects fundraising,” he does allow that he has a “sense of how it affects attendance.” Specifically, it drives it up. In June, for instance, the campus hosted 57 seminars, ranging from a discussion of alumni legacy admissions to a book-signing with Bush antagonist Ron Suskind (himself a Wahoo). Even day trips were offered, including a visit to Jefferson Vineyards. Such events count as programming “that’s attractive, either in a nostalgic sense or that is engaging socially or intellectually,” Life says.
Knight says next year’s reunions goal will be “at least $50 million.”