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Oxbridge dominance diminished as university fundraising income up £151m

Fundraising | Celina Ribeiro | 12 Nov 2009

Universities are gaining ground on Oxbridge’s fundraising dominance according to the latest figures which show fundraising income up £151m across the entire sector, but Oxbridge’s share of the total slipping.

Universities raised £682m in voluntary income over 2007/2008 financial year, up 28 per cent from the year previous, according to figures in the annual Ross-CASE Survey released today. But the period covered by the survey, which is the most up-to-date record on the state of university fundraising, ends before the beginning of the economic crisis and before the introduction of the government’s £200m matched funding scheme for universities.

The report, produced by NatCen for CASE Europe and Ross Group of Development Directors, estimates that £143m of the total raised in 2007/2008 would have been eligible for matched funding, introduced on August 1 last year, but does not speculate whether this is enough to off-set any recessionary impact.

Oxbridge dominates

Cambridge and Oxford universities continue to dominate fundraising in higher education, accounting for more than a third of the total, but the gap is closing between the two fundraising giants and other universities. In 2006/2007 the percentage of the total raised by universities which went to Oxbridge was 51 per cent.

The report found: “The longer-established universities, with correspondingly large development budgets and longer histories, raise the largest amounts of money and at a lower cost per pound raised. Institutional investment and experience matter.”

Oxford University has announced two $50m gifts within the last 12 months and Cambridge University reported total fundraising for 2007/2008 at £138m.

In addition to Oxford and Cambridge’s multi-year £1bn-plus campaigns, Edinburgh, University College London and Imperial all are in the midst of campaigns aiming to bring in more than £250m.

Donor numbers rise

Joanna Motion, CASE vice president for international operations, drew confidence from a 12 per cent annual increase in the number of donors giving to universities, which reached 144,000 over the financial year. The figure was up by a third on 2005/2006 levels.

“The year-on-year increase in the number of donors giving to higher education in the UK is striking and encouraging,” she said.

“This report shows we are at a crossroads in the UK as giving to universities is no longer seen as the preserve of the wealthy. It is steadily becoming something ordinary people do as universities become more professional in their engagement with alumni and supporters.”

Since the introduction of the matched funding offer last year, and threats of widespread public funding cuts to higher education, many universities across the UK have set up their first development departments and embarked on major, and annual, fundraising campaigns. The match funding initiative, designed to push fundraising income upward, is likely to result in increased fundraising costs, which had increased to £55m in 2007/2008 from £41m in 2005/2007.

But while universities are expanding low-level annual giving schemes, the Coutts Million Pound report, released earlier this week, showed that higher education remains the favoured destination for high-level gifts from wealthy individuals and foundations. 

While alumni account for the vast majority of donations, universities have made inroads to the broader giving public; 82 per cent of donors in the most recent financial year were alumni, compared to 94 per cent the year before.

As reported by Professional Fundraising earlier this year, a lack of data on alumni is a critical and ongoing issue for universities, but the Ross-CASE report shows a more than 1 million increase in the number of addresses for former students over a two-year period.

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