UMKC's mission: $200 million by 2007

By LYNN FRANEY The Kansas City Star

“I would imagine that the really stalwart donors to UMKC are going to be there for the institution in the long term.” Joye Mercer Barksdale of the international Council for the Advancement and Support of Education.

A troubled University of Missouri-Kansas City united Thursday to publicly kick off a $200-million fund-raising campaign, UMKC's largest ever.

Chancellor Martha Gilliland was all smiles as she unveiled a poster showing UMKC already has raised $133 million toward the $200 million goal.

“To use a colloquial expression,” Gilliland said, “we are fired up.”

The campus is trying to raise $44 million for faculty support, $32 million for student scholarships, $74 million for building projects, and $50 million for other needs, including library materials, lectures and theater productions.

The target date for completing the “Your UMKC” campaign: Dec. 31, 2006.

On Thursday, hundreds of UMKC employees, along with community leaders such as Kansas City Mayor Kay Barnes and campaign co-chairmen Terry and Peggy Dunn, showered Gilliland with hearty applause.

“I would be lying if I didn't say that felt good,” Gilliland said as she took the stage.

Gilliland, 60, encountered serious public criticism from her own professors recently, with faculty groups in four schools — law, business and public administration, arts and sciences, and biological sciences — saying they lack confidence in her leadership.

Her boss, University of Missouri system President Elson Floyd, has been meeting with people to gauge whether Gilliland should continue to lead the campus.

During Gilliland's four and a half years on campus, UMKC has engaged in a “silent” or private phase preceding Thursday's public kick-off.

UMKC began counting donations toward the $200 million campaign in January 2000, said UMKC spokesman Brandon Ferguson.

Money raised so far has supported special faculty fellowships, new buildings such as the Oak Street Residence Hall, and student scholarships.

In kicking off the public campaign, UMKC joins a growing number of public universities turning to private donations to supplement state and federal money, which funds less and less of their budgets.

The University of Missouri-Columbia wants to raise $600 million by next December, and the University of Kansas is trying to nudge its campaign over $600 million by the end of this month.

KU initially wanted to raise $500 million by the end of this year, but when it hit the target early, it decided to ask for more by the target date. That campaign — KU First: Invest in Excellence — now stands at $573 million, said John Scarffe, a spokesman at the KU Endowment Association.

He acknowledged there might be overlap as universities hit up the same foundations and corporations for donations.

“There's some competition,” Scarffe said.

But most donors, he added, are a university's graduates, meaning universities don't have to beat each other out for their contributions.

Experts also said that problems such as those UMKC is enduring don't usually doom a campaign.

Donors often give for personal reasons, such as wanting to help students who study the same subject as they did, said Joye Mercer Barksdale, a spokeswoman at the international Council for the Advancement and Support of Education.

Because college presidents often only stay for about five years or so, the odds are that a university will experience a change of leadership during a large fund-raising campaign, Barksdale said.

“People who are inclined to give to the campus probably have a relationship established with the campus because gifts result from relationships that are built up over time,” Barksdale said. “So institutions may go through leadership changes that may have an impact … I would imagine that the really stalwart donors to UMKC are going to be there for the institution in the long term.”

But UMKC has had some fund-raising problems before. For example, UMKC wanted to build a new health sciences building, but once it finally got $30 million from the state of Missouri, the overall building costs had grown because of inflation and increasing ambitions for research space. Campus fund-raisers weren't able to raise enough to be able to break ground this fall.

So five months into the fiscal year, Gilliland gathered the required funds by using a newly created “plant fund.”

Each academic school at UMKC had to turn over 5 percent of its budget for the fund.

An alumni fund-raising effort for a planned expansion of the University Center also fell short this year, so that may be funded from the new plant fund, too.

Some of the funds from the silent phase of the campaign already have been put to good use.

Nursing student Suzanne Sandhu of Peculiar, Mo., received a Goppert Foundation scholarship this year, which the foundation then doubled from $1,000 a year to $2,000 a year about a month ago.

A newly divorced mother of five children, Sandhu, 41, said she was “honored” by the foundation's decision to help her enter the medical field after years of home-schooling her children and deferring her own dream.

When she learned she had won the Goppert scholarship, Sandhu said: “I was just overwhelmed, thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, this is so incredible.' It affirmed to me that I am doing the right thing (going back to school) and that I'm in the right place. Any little bit helps. That's money that is freed up for me to be able to live on.”

Another student who has been aided by scholarships is Veronica Castro, a Trustees' Scholarship winner who spoke at the campaign kick-off Thursday morning.

“This campaign is for me and my fellow students,” said Castro, 19, who is from Kansas City. “This campaign is for Kansas City and its university.”

To reach Lynn Franey,

higher education reporter, call (816) 234-4927 or send e-mail to lfraney@kcstar.com.