Higher education philanthropy has been hard to miss the last few weeks. Phil and Penny Knight committed $1 billion toward establishing a college of engineering at the University of Oregon. Ken Griffin’s $3 billion gift to Carnegie Mellon will support its Pittsburgh campus and a planned new campus in Miami.
The scale is extraordinary. So is the potential to shape what these institutions become. Gifts this large can command attention on their own. But a campaign has a different job: turning institutional ambition into something many more people can see themselves helping advance.
Alongside the campaign launches I’ve been following, all of this has me thinking about a question that matters at any campaign size: What are we asking people to be part of?
I shared five recent campaigns on LinkedIn this week. Looking across them more closely, what interests me is how their public messages connect institutional purpose with an invitation—and what it takes to deliver on that.
Start with something people recognize.
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s It Takes a Volunteer campaign draws on the Volunteer creed and the university’s identity of service. The $3.5 billion effort gives familiar language a philanthropic purpose: asking people to help shape the future of the university and state.
What catches my attention is the relationship between the campaign and the institution's existing story. The campaign gives people something to do with an identity they already share.
That’s worth considering before introducing a new campaign brand. What do people already associate with your institution that could become a compelling reason to participate? The answer might come from its history, a distinctive experience, or a role it plays in people’s lives. Even when a campaign introduces a new direction, it should give people a recognizable connection to the institution they know.
Show who benefits beyond the institution.
New Mexico’s $1.2 billion Accelerate New Mexico campaign makes the state’s future central to its case, connecting education, research, and healthcare to the people and communities the university serves.
St. Thomas’s $1 billion Be Brilliant. Be Bold. connects professional excellence with graduates’ responsibility to serve the common good. The point reaches beyond what graduates achieve to what they contribute.
Those are different expressions of an important distinction: strengthening the institution is a means to something larger.
That also raises the bar for communications. A case built around community benefit needs more than announcements about gifts, buildings, and appointments. It needs the perspectives of people who stand to benefit, along with credible evidence of progress. That means being clear about what is happening already—and what philanthropy is intended to make possible.
Give participation some substance.
Pitt’s Proving Possible pairs its $3 billion goal with targets of 200,000 donors and one million alumni-engagement moments.
Indiana’s Never Daunted explicitly combines fundraising and engagement, inviting contributions of time, talent, financial support, and advocacy. And St. Thomas is also seeking more than one million acts of engagement, including mentoring, volunteering, and advocacy.
What interests me is the choice to make participation part of the public promise. That creates an obligation to think carefully about the experience being offered rather than just the invitation.
A participation count doesn’t tell us, by itself, whether relationships are becoming stronger. For our own campaigns, we should be clear about what we hope involvement will lead to—and what happens after someone responds.
For example, inviting alumni to mentor students creates a responsibility to make those connections work. Development, Alumni Relations, and MarCom (and other colleagues across campus) need to shape that invitation together, with clear ownership of the follow-through.
For your next campaign conversation
The lesson here isn't to borrow the language or benchmark your campaign against billion-dollar totals. I'd look instead at the connection between the ambition, the institution's purpose, and the role people are being offered.
Try this with your team. Compare your campaign’s central promise with one recent story and one invitation to participate. Do they reinforce each other? Or does the promise sound expansive while people are left to figure out how they fit?
A strong campaign does both: give people a clear reason to care and a meaningful way to act on it.
Dan
P.S. If this question of participation caught your attention, my last issue goes deeper into what happens after launch: The Most Underused Years of a Campaign. The "long middle" shouldn't just sustain campaign attention—it should compound campaign participation! Read it here.