policy & reform
Forging industry ties
Attracting generous philanthropic acts from a database of former students is no easy task – just ask Jenny Bott.
Bott spent six years as the chief executive officer of the University of New South Wales Foundation. Even for an established university with a solid national and international reputation for academic excellence, it took a while to develop a strategy and get nonalumni people on board.
“ When I arrived back in October 2006, I inherited a team of eight people who had raised $ 5.45 million per annum in private funding for that year,” Bott says.“ When I left in October 2012, the team was 53 people and we had raised $ 21 million in 2011 and were expecting to beat that figure in 2012.
“ Philanthropic funding requires a detailed strategy in order to attract not just alumni, but other individuals that may not have thought of donating money to fund university research and development.”
Bott, who has held similar posts at the Australia Council for the Arts and Musica Viva Australia, was charged with the responsibility of building a team and devising a strategy to raise financial support through the alignment of community, government and stakeholder interests, as well as increasing alumni engagement.
“ The key to philanthropic funding is to state your strengths in each of your faculties,” Bott says.“ When David Gonski( chancellor) and Fred Hilmer( vice-chancellor) became actively involved in philanthropic fundraising, it helped enormously with their contacts in many fields of industry.”
During Bott’ s tenure at UNSW, a $ 100 million cancer research centre was announced in 2007, with contributions from the NSW government($ 18.3 million) and federal government($ 13.3 million) and with the Lowy family($ 10 million). The Lowy Cancer Research Centre undertakes crucial research into adult and children’ s cancers.“ That was a great example of philanthropy working with government and non-government bodies to create something special that will benefit a lot of people,” Bott says. There was also the $ 125 million Tyree Energy Technologies Building, focusing on energy research, which opened up at the UNSW last year where the federal government kicked in $ 75 million and Sir William Tyree donated $ 1 million with a promise to donate another $ 11 million.
Jenny Bott
Better Strategic Decision Making Historical & Predictive Analytics
Discover how to make the shift to improved financial sustainability and transparency using business analytics
Join us in Indianapolis July 13-16 for the NACUBO Annual Meeting- Driving Innovation.
The University of Sydney’ s Director of Corporate Finance, Matt Easdown will outline the University’ s Strategy for Driving Financial Sustainability and Transparency.
www. pilbaragroup. com www. nacuboannualmeeting. org sydney. edu. au
www. campusreview. com. au April 2013 | 21