Kansas University and the KU Endowment Association have hired the same company that helped prepare Campaign Kansas to lay the groundwork for the new capital campaign.
Kansas University and KU Endowment Association officials are considering a goal of a half-billion dollars for a capital campaign planned to begin sometime in 2001.
If a goal of $500 million is adopted for the campaign, it would mean the endowment association would increase by almost 50 percent the market value of its holdings when the campaign is completed about four or five years after it starts.
KU Chancellor Robert Hemenway and Endowment Association President Jim Martin said a goal of $500 million to $600 million is being considered for the campaign.
"Those numbers have been floated around," Hemenway said.
The last capital campaign called Campaign Kansas ran from 1988 to 1992 and raised $265 million. Campaign Kansas' original goal was $177 million. Planning for Campaign Kansas began in 1986.
The endowment association has hired the same Chicago consulting company that helped prepare Campaign Kansas to lay the groundwork for the new campaign.
Grenzebach Glier & Associates, a 35-year-old philanthropic management consultant, is reviewing the endowment association's management structure and information technology capabilities in preparation for the campaign, said Ann Murphy, vice president for marketing and communications for the company.
Grenzebach Glier has helped universities in North America and Europe raise a total of $8 billion. It is currently the consultant on $1 billion campaigns being done by the University of California at Los Angeles and Johns Hopkins University, Murphy said.
Part of the study under way will determine what amount of money can be raised from donors, Martin and Murphy said.
"We're really in our organizational phase," Martin said. "We're working with the university to determine what needs it has to best be addressed with private support and how to best match those private support needs with private individuals as well as corporations and foundations."
From the organizational phase, the campaign would enter the quiet phase when it begins matching the donors to proposals, Martin said.
Much of the money for a fund-raising campaign is actually committed during the quiet phase.
Martin said the campaign would begin in 18 to 24 months.
"It could be sooner. It could be later," he said.
Martin also revealed the preliminary statements of market value of the endowment association's assets for the fiscal year ended June 30.
The assets are $974 million. That's an increase of $65.3 million in the value of assets over the past fiscal year.
-- Erwin Seba's phone message number is 832-7145. His e-mail address is eseba@ljworld.com.
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