The Tuck School of Business Annual Giving campaign broke a world record when it reached a 70.5 percent participation rate in its 2011 campaign, according to a Tuck press release. Participation in Tuck Annual Giving has historically been higher in comparison to other business schools in the United States and around the world, Dave Celone, director of development and annual giving, said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
This year's record giving rate was the result of a certain "synergy" of events, including Dean Paul Danos' reappointment to another term in office and a donor-matching challenge, Celone said.
"We had a very popular, and most beloved, dean accept a fifth term in office, which got people excited," he said. "An anonymous challenger stepped forward with a matching challenge, the Spring for 70,' for all of the 550 volunteers around the world in the final waning hours of the campaign. And it was the 40th anniversary of Tuck Annual Giving. We were all putting our best foot forward to break the record."
Although Tuck Annual Giving rates for the eight-month campaign were unprecedented, organizers expected the donation rate to surpass 70 percent, Celone said.
"This year was higher than usual, but it had been climbing towards 70 percent from the high 60s for the past seven or eight years," Celone said.
In 2010, 67 percent of Tuck's living alumni donated to the school, compared to the approximately 20 percent giving rate for other top-level MBA programs, according to CNN Money.
In addition to the large efforts of nearly 600 annual volunteers and an executive committee made up of head, corporate and international agents charged with organizing donation efforts within different target groups of Tuck alumni and, the annual campaign owes its success to the Tuck student experience, Celone said.
"I think when you're up there, your graduates tend to get much more significant jobs at higher pay," Dick Sullivan Tu'67 said. "I think that all of us consider our educational experiences being one of the reasons we got the jobs you got, and you tend to want to give back to the schools so that the schools can continue to do that for its graduates to come in the future."
The Town of Hanover and the College's emphasis on community bring Tuck classes together, which likely contributed to the record, Celone said.
Donations from alumni participating in the campaign are not earmarked for one particular project, academic department or special cause, according to Celone. Instead, the funds raised from Tuck Alumni Giving enter the current operating budget.
Alumni donations support about 50 percent of the operating budget and Tuck Annual Giving makes up about 10 percent of the total alumni contribution, Celone said. These donations help attract and retain faculty members, maintain the career development staff and provide scholarships for current students, he said.
The ultimate goal of Tuck Annual Giving is to garner 100 percent donation participation from the school's 8,976 living alumni, Celone said.
Staff writer Jay Webster contributed reporting to this article.
