The culture of asking

By Kate Hunter, Executive Director, CASE Europe. There is nothing new about philanthropy and education. Many of the origins of the UK’s 250 or more higher education institutions lie in the generosity and far-sightedness of individuals, communities and organisations. Two centuries ago the citizens of Glasgow contributed through a subscription campaign to move the growing University of Glasgow to a new campus in the west end of the city; a legacy from insurer Barber Beaumont led to the establishment of the People’s Palace, an institution providing education for the people of the capital’s East End, today known as Queen Mary, University of London. Shipping magnate Joseph Constantine made a gift that led to the establishment of Constantine technical college in the north east, a predecessor institution of Teesside University...
Equally significantly, the Leicester gift is one of a growing number of multi-million pound donations made to an increasing number and type of institution across UK higher education. Recent gifts from Mica Ertegun and Michael Moritz to support scholarships at Oxford are truly inspirational, but let’s also applaud the £10m gift to Southampton University for cancer immunology, Dickson Poon’s £20m gift for King’s College London’s School of Law and Nat Puri’s £1m gift for engineering at London South Bank University. These gifts raise ambitions, sights and set examples. While some institutions may have previously dismissed fundraising, saying ‘we don’t have the tradition, projects or alumni profile’, the success of Leicester and other universities demonstrate that the cumulative fundraising advantage, or ‘Matthew effect’, may not always be true. Next month’s HEFCE review of higher education philanthropy, led by Professor Shirley Pearce, is expected to bust that particular myth once and for all. More...