Open University targets £50m fundraising by 2019

22 Oct 2018 News

Jhumar Johnson, head of development at The Open University

The head of development at The Open University has said that the organisation is on track to rase £50m by the end of next year, and hits its first fundraising appeal target

Jhumar Johnson, who runs The Open University’s fundraising and campaigns team, was speaking to Fundraising Magazine for its October issue.

She said the organisation has raised £31m since the campaign first launched in 2015, and that by the end of the campaign it expects to have quadrupled its annual fundraising to £10m a year.

“We launched The Open University’s first fundraising campaign called Open up the Future in 2015 with the intention of raising £50m by the end of 2019, the organisation’s 50th anniversary year," she said.

“The university invested a significant amount to launch the campaign so that we could build a skilled fundraising team, have the flexibility to develop elements within the campaign and invest in our database. The idea was that the campaign would mark a step change for philanthropic income, and the university showed a lot of foresight in getting the foundations right.”

Johnson also said that The Open University’s current income from alumni fundraising already marks it out as one of the top 10 fundraising universities in the UK. 

“Alumni fundraising generates around £1m a year through 10,000 donors, which puts us in the top 10 universities in the country in terms of alumni funds.“

Subscribers to Fundraising Magazine can read the full interview with Jhumar Johnson here. For more information on how to subscribe to Fundraising Magazine, click here.

 

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