Donations to the UW Foundation have decreased 12 percent since last September's economic downturn, prompting UW-Madison's colleges and departments to cut back on certain program spending.
The Foundation, which solicits, controls and distributes donations from alumni and friends of the university, reported a 12 percent drop in donations between September 2008 and September 2009 (from $126,903,723 to $112,261,756) while the number of donations received dropped 7.5 percent. Andrew Wilcox, the Foundation's president, described the decrease as a ""freefall"" compared to past years, and said the Foundation's endowment—the pool of invested, long-term donations—also took a substantial hit with the recession, falling from $2.9 to $2.27 billion.
The donation shortages have led to budget cuts in many divisions, including the College of Letters and Science, the School of Education, the Business School and the Athletic Department.
Many colleges are leaning increasingly on private gifts, according to College of Letters & Science Dean Gary Sandefur. Inconveniently, expenditures within the College have increased 30-40 percent in the past five years.
Sandefur said the decrease in donations has affected the College's ability to support many of the faculty research projects, aid for graduate students and student group activities it had formerly funded.
""Students have lots of creative ideas,"" he said. ""They can get some money through ASM and some through the dean's office, but in the past the College has been able to step in from time to time and help with some of these activities, but we just can't do as many now as we used to.""
School of Education Dean Julie Underwood said the decrease in donations isn't canceling any projects for the School, but it is preventing the implementation of new initiatives.
One of those delayed projects is the Partner Schools Initiative, in which UW teachers work to improve curriculum and professional development in the Madison Public School District.
Decreasing donations have also affected UW's School of Business, where donations have dropped from $33.9 million in 2008's fiscal year (July 1 to June 30) to $16.8 million in 2009. The School's budget doesn't reflect that stiff decline, however, since the School is still benefiting from the $85 million Wisconsin Naming Gift in 2007, in which 13 donors contributed to not name the business school after any one person, according to Assistant Dean for Alumni and Corporate Relations Alisa Robertson.
Although such large endowments are often invested to generate financial interest for UW to use in the future, those gifts are uncommon this year. The Foundation reported receiving 29 fewer gifts of more than $100,000 between January and August than the same period last year.
""The general sense of things is people are not in the position to be making $2 million gifts right now,"" Robertson said.
The current economy has limited state funds, so UW has been working to find ""big bucks"" donors to support specific departments or projects, from endowing professorships to funding long-term needs like professor salaries, Vice Chancellor for Administration Darrell Bazzell said.
""Sometimes it's finding what the donor is interested in and other times it's very deliberate, seeking out donors for a specific project,"" he said.
The UW Athletic Department is among those to hold ""capital campaigns"" to support facility projects. From June 2008 to June 2009, the Athletic Department's gifts dropped 7 percent, or $1.3 million, Associate Athletic Director Marija Pientka said.
The Athletic Department is uniquely affected by the drop because it receives no state funding, and gifts are the second highest revenue source after ticket sales, so the department has had to increase its efficiency in spending.
While the Foundation saw sharp donation drops, donations to the UW System's Trust Fund designated for UW-Madison increased from $7.5 million to $10.7 million between September 2008 and 2009, according to Tom Reinders, senior portfolio analyst for the Fund.
""The majority of our gifts are endowed assets that are willed, I wouldn't think that our gifts would be impacted nearly as much as the Foundation,"" Reinders said.
According to Sandefur, decreases in donations to the Foundation do not reflect alumni's devotion to the school.
""The alumni are not any less committed or any less inclined to help the university,"" Sandefur said. ""It's just that the economy has made it difficult for people to give money to places they would like to give money to.""
""I think that as people become more stable in their own personal economies that we'll get our donors back,"" Underwood said. ""They do have a strong connection to the school.""
—Ryan Hebel contributed to this report.
