William & Mary Aims to Democratize Its Campaign

Matthew Lambert started a graduate program in higher-education administration at Ohio State convinced he wanted to work in student affairs. To his surprise, he fell in love with fundraising during an unpaid internship in the university’s development office, beginning a career that’s taken him very far, very fast.

After 11 years raising money and moving up the ladder at Georgetown University, Mr. Lambert got a call from his alma mater, William & Mary, which in 2013 appointed him to lead its fundraising efforts. He was only 35.

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William & Mary at the time was in the quiet phase of a capital campaign that Mr. Lambert soon decided wasn’t ambitious enough. Donors, he realized, had little enthusiasm for the drive, which aimed to raise $600 million — only $100 million more than the college’s last campaign.

So after just a year on the job, Mr. Lambert persuaded the university to reset and shoot for $1 billion. He also made William & Mary one of the first colleges to bundle an alumni-participation goal into a campaign; the university aims to win gifts from 40 percent of undergraduate alumni. Both targets were a stretch, especially the participation figure, which had been hovering around 23 percent.

Two years later, the results have been impressive. William & Mary has raised $736 million, and last year nearly 30 percent of alumni made gifts.

William & Mary might have met its $1 billion target without significantly increasing the number of donors, Mr. Lambert says, but the university now is in a much stronger position for its next campaign.

A participation goal also gives a campaign, which is often fueled by big gifts from the wealthy, a more democratic feel, he says. Every gift counts the same.

“That really speaks to some of the pools of potential donors who have historically sat on the sidelines during campaigns, because they felt like it didn’t really speak to them,” he says. “ ‘If I couldn’t make a $1 million gift, the university didn’t care about me.’ ”