ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

A capital campaign comes with an overarching theme, specific projects that it aims to finance, and a set monetary target—all announced in glossy promotional materials.

But before that public program is ever rolled out, over a third of the money has already been gathered through hushed solicitation of major contributions, which in development lingo is a period known as the “quiet phase.”

This year, Harvard entered that phase, kick-starting the enormous initiative with little fanfare.

Vice President for Alumni Affairs and Development Tamara E. Rogers ’74 said that Harvard would set a “very ambitious goal” for the campaign.

Administrators say that a fundraising goal has not been determined yet, but according to Steven Oliveira, dean for development and alumni relations at Harvard Law School, the total will likely top $4 billion.

“Odds are that this will be the largest campaign in higher education,” Oliveira said, adding that Harvard’s campaign will likely collect a sum “in the $4 billion range ... and very possibly beyond that.”

Rogers has said that schools gather as much as 40 percent of the campaign total during the quiet phase, which according to Oliveira will last for more than two years and will be followed by a five-year public campaign. That timeline puts the University on track to publicly launch the campaign around 2013 and to wrap up the fundraising drive around 2018.

Remarking on the last campaign—which was the first time the entire University pulled together instead of the individual campaigns each school had hosted in the past—Rogers indicated that one in this decade would again be a University-wide effort.

“Since we truly want to do the absolute best research, recruit the absolute best students, and give them the absolute best experience, we have to think University-wide for the next campaign. All of the schools are participating in the planning process,” Rogers said in an emailed statement.

A DRIVE DEFERRED

The books had barely closed on Harvard’s last capital campaign—which, at its conclusion in 1999, was the most lucrative ever in the history of higher education—when the University began considering its next go-round, an effort that would be aborted and stalled on multiple occasions.

In 2002, Hyman said that the University was mulling strategies for a potential campaign. By 2004, The Crimson reported that the campaign was set to start that year. Soon, the initial fundraising—the quiet phase—was underway.

But in 2005, then-University President Lawrence H. Summers came under fire from the faculty for remarks deemed offensive to women. Amidst the scrutiny, the campaign’s public launch was pushed back.

After Summers’ ignominious resignation, the campaign was put off until a new president could take office. But after Faust’s appointment, a deep recession struck. Again, Harvard’s first campaign of the 21st century failed to launch.

Now, with Faust ensconced in Massachusetts Hall and donors’ wallets fattening as the economy recuperates, the long-awaited campaign has at last quietly taken off.

—Tara W. Merrigan and Zoe A. Y. Weinberg contributed to the reporting of this article.

—Staff writer Julie M. Zauzmer can be reached at jzauzmer@college.harvard.edu.