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Fundraising Leaders Strategize For Future Drives

NEW YORK--At a celebration yesterday in the nation's financial center, Harvard's most generous benefactors and prominent administrators gathered to pat themselves on the back for a job well done.

But as they toasted each other in the ballroom of the Harvard Club, those who have cajoled and contributed on behalf of the five-year capital campaign reached a new consensus--that the $2.1 billion raised so far is not enough.

The next challenge is to keep the momentum behind Harvard's fundraising machine--something that will take both new donors and revised fundraising strategies.

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Indeed, though Harvard has pulled in $2.325 billion, University administrators fear that the surplus will make donors reluctant to give further to Harvard, even though key areas of the campaign remain below their goal.

"There's always a concern that the end of a campaign signals to some people that the job is done," President Neil L. Rudenstine told The Crimson. "It's not as if the work stops."

The University must not rest on its laurels, Rudenstine said, in part because several important campaign goals have not yet been met, and probably won't be by the campaign's end on Dec. 31. Funding for libraries, science, endowed professorships and for a presidential discretionary fund are still below target, whereas some goals set at the campaign's conception have become obsolete.

Information technology has suddenly taken center stage. Better advising and facilities for the sciences have moved up on the agenda. Internationalization is the new buzzword.

"Some goals you don't anticipate," said Law School Dean Robert C. Clark. "They come up on you but you have to do something about them."

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