North Central’s Brilliant Future Campaign has been in action since January 2013 and was made public in 2015. The goal of the campaign was to raise $150 million for the College.
Now, with a little more than two years left in the campaign, Adrian Aldrich, an alum and the executive director of development and alumni affairs, explained the success of the campaign so far.
“After President Hammond arrived, we started a new strategic planning process,” said Aldrich. “A comprehensive campaign (like the Brilliant Future Campaign) is tied to the strategic plan and it helps let the public know the direction the institution is going.”
The campaign as a whole allows the public to know where the College is looking for financial support — from alumni, parents and even corporations.
“This is the largest campaign we’ve ever undertaken as an institution,” said Aldrich. “We had traditionally done campaigns that were more project-based and specific need-based, like the (Wentz) Concert Hall.”
The Brilliant Future Campaign, however, is intended to find opportunities to support future and current students from a capital standpoint. With that in mind, the Dr. Myron Wentz Science Center was created. The $60 million Science Center became the hallmark of the campaign.
“We knew that our students and our faculty needed more than the old science center was able to provide,” said Aldrich. “We needed that state of the art facility to help support the academic endeavors of our students and faculty.”
Aldrich emphasized the College’s desire to support students from a more financial aspect through the distribution of scholarship support.
The College tries to increase the North Central Scholarship Fund every year in order to support scholarships like the Presidential Scholarships. Aldrich explained that the campaign has become an important aspect of financing that fund.
Additionally, through the campaign, the College received its first gift for a scholarship for graduate students, something Aldrich says is a “big deal.” The campaign is meant to create a more cost-effective system that helps reduce the burden of student debt through fundraising from alumni and donors.
Yet, while a new building and scholarship endowments are integral to the success of the campaign, Aldrich adds there remains a focus on programmatic support as well. Support for Enactus, or the new coffee lab in the Larrance Academic Center, or even the newly renovated Union, get funding from this campaign.
“The really important thing about comprehensive campaigns and especially how North Central fundraises, student tuition does not go to support bricks and mortar,” Aldrich said. “It is 100% funded by the generosity of alumni and donors. When North Central invests from a capital standpoint, we are doing it on behalf of our students to benefit their educational experience and it is not at the expense of their tuition.”
These donations include will commitments, buildings and property in addition to cash. It is these donations that are included in the overall $150 million goal of the campaign. The campaign will wrap up in December of 2022.
Aldrich says the team in charge of the campaign, many of whom he hired, are working toward raising more than the $150 million. He says it can be hard to gauge where a team stands sometimes, but he and his team are feeling confident.
“It’s so much fun to work on behalf of students,” Aldrich said. “We get to see the benefit of our work when a building like the Science Center gets put up and you get to see students and faculty coming in and out all the time. That’s really gratifying. We’re fortunate to have a group that committed to helping support (students).”
