As Cornell University faces greater need for donations in the current recession, it also faces having to get more funds with less money as a result of the economic crisis.

In order to better focus its fundraising efforts to meet its needs and in response to the university cutting its budget by 5 percent, Cornell’s Department of Alumni Affairs and Development recently laid off 41 employees, around 10 percent of the department’s workforce. Richard Banks, associate vice president for alumni affairs and development at Cornell, said the positions were cut based on which positions were least crucial. He said Cornell was putting resources into hiring more frontline fundraisers to work with potential donors.

“By growing the number of fundraisers, what we’re able to do is have more people who can work with these prospective donors, and the more people you work with effectively, the more effective our fundraising program will be,” he said.

Banks said Cornell will also focus more on fundraising in New York City, where around a quarter of Cornell’s alumni live. All other AAD regional offices were closed in order to save funds, and the administrative staffs at those offices were among the employees who were laid off.

“We closed the offices because we felt that by doing so we could redirect the resources that we were using to support those offices in different ways that we felt were more appropriate,” Banks said.

Laura Toy, vice president for affairs and development, said Cornell received only 11 percent of its revenue from interest collected on its endowment, compared to 30 percent for other Ivy League schools. She said cash gifts to Cornell had recently gone up and annual gifts, which were deducted from donors’ salaries, were holding steady, but there were fewer multiyear commitments because of donors’ uncertainty about the future.

“They’re not saying, ‘No, I don’t want to support Cornell,’” Toy said. “They’re saying oftentimes, ‘Come back and talk to me in a month or two when I have a better understanding of my own financial situation.’”

According to Alicia Reed, a senior analyst at Eduventures, a research consulting company for higher education, 35 percent of private colleges expected their contributions to decrease by 10 percent or less and 10 percent expected a 10 to 25 percent reduction. Most public institutions expected their contributions to remain the same and 36 percent of them expected their donations to rise.

Reed said donors’ contributions were affected differently, especially for those in the financial industry, as donors who gave small amounts to their colleges every year were less likely to be affected than those who pledged thousands of dollars.

“From an advancement point of view, you want to be sensitive to that in your conversations,” Reed said. “You need to adjust your conversations to not only the state of the economy but how has that particular individual situation been impacted.”

Banks said the recession caused many people to donate less to the university because they could not afford to continue giving as much as in the past, or because they were not sure they would keep their income. He said the university accepted alternative gifts and bequests, and its fundraisers would help donors work through their personal issues.

“If it’s appropriate to talk to someone about making a gift, we will talk to them about it, but if it’s the not the right time, we don’t put pressure on them,” he said.

Reed said many colleges were facing similar challenges with raising money, and the university should not cut back on their front line fundraising in order to save money.

Reed said the rate at which donors gave to college was affected by their finances, their desire to support a college and their level of connection with the college. She said the economy affected donors’ ability to pay, but not their desire to support their college or their level of connection with their college.  

“When we ask donors questions about why they give or why they don’t give, we take all those factors into account and sometimes the answer is sometimes, ‘I don’t have the money right now,’” Reed said.

Banks said the economy did not affect the fundamentals of how Cornell was raising funds, as it is always looking for ways to increase its funds and seek out new donors.

“We’re encouraging our staff to redouble their efforts to be in touch with people, with alumni, with students, to reach out to new people, to continue maintain contact with them, so they know that Cornell wants to be in touch with them and engaged with them regardless of the economic plan,” he said.