When Johns Hopkins employees are asked to donate to the
institution where they work, as will happen this month,
it's more than a call for financial support, said Robert
Lindgren, vice president for
development and
alumni relations: It's an opportunity to send a
powerful message to would-be external donors.
"How people closest to the institution, those
actually working here, feel about its importance and its
future is very important," Lindgren said, adding that
employees typically know best where the need is
greatest.
Johns Hopkins is about to launch the faculty/staff
portion of its Knowledge for the World campaign, the
university and health system's ambitious $2 billion
fund-raising effort. Lindgren said that Johns Hopkins
periodically reaches out to faculty and staff for giving
purposes but that this current effort is a systematic
approach to reach employees and help Johns Hopkins focus
on its critical priorities.
He noted that faculty and staff were a vital part of
the previous fund-raising campaign — the Johns
Hopkins Initiative — that ended in June 2000 and
raised $1.52 billion. Nearly 10,000 employees participated
in the effort and contributed more than $38 million.
Judson Crihfield, director of Annual Giving for the
Johns Hopkins Institutions, said, "Johns Hopkins is an
amazing place, and faculty and staff, like everyone else,
get caught up in the promise of what happens here and feel
good about supporting that. We hope they will continue to
do so." Participation at any level in this campaign would
be much appreciated, he said. "They can support their own
department, their own school or make an unrestricted
donation, which is an important way to give as it allows
us to place these funds where they are needed most."
The public phase of the current fund-raising effort
began in May 2002. As of April 1, 2004, $1.3 billion had
been raised.
Lindgren said that having back-to-back major
fund-raising campaigns is nearly unprecedented in higher
education. The reason for doing so, he said, is to
maintain the momentum built by the successful Johns
Hopkins Initiative and to satisfy the ongoing critical
need for budget relief and cash infusion at Johns Hopkins.
Beginning this month, faculty and staff at Johns
Hopkins will receive by mail a letter and contribution
form asking them to pledge their support. Employees will
be asked to make any level of contribution, whether it be
unrestricted or targeted to a specific department,
program, division or building initiative at Hopkins.
Donations can be made by payroll deduction, check or
credit card.
The money raised from the overall campaign will help
build and upgrade facilities on all Hopkins campuses;
strengthen endowment for student aid and faculty support;
and advance research, academic and clinical initiatives.
Half the $2 billion goal is sought for priorities at
Johns Hopkins Medicine. Capital priorities there include
three research buildings, a new children's and maternal
building, and a cardiovascular and critical care building.
Elsewhere, capital priorities include completion of campus
renovations at the Peabody Institute and the planned
renovation of Gilman Hall on the Homewood campus.
Co-chairs of the Knowledge for the World campaign,
which ends in 2007, are university trustees George L.
Bunting Jr., J. Barclay Knapp and Gail J. McGovern.
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