Howard University sets the bar high for its largest ever capital campaign, and now plans to share the secrets of its success with fellow HBCUs.

In the fall of 2001, top administrators and trustees from Howard University secluded themselves at a retreat at the posh Lansdowne Resort in the rolling Virginia countryside near Washington to discuss the future of their school. There they planted the seeds of what was to become the most successful fundraising campaign ever undertaken by a historically Black university.

For Howard President H. Patrick Swygert, the campaign was the latest in a series of fundraising efforts that he had started since 1995 when he took over as president. At the time, he recalls, “It was clear we needed a change. Only 4 to 5 percent of the alumni were participating. About 90 percent didn’t participate at all.”

The brainstorming at the Lansdowne retreat created an innovative, multifaceted and complex campaign that ended up seeing the school reach its goal of $250 million early and then surpass it by $22 million. The “Campaign for Howard” also serves as a yardstick and an incentive for other HBCUs to improve their own fundraising efforts.

At the retreat, Swygert drew upon old and young blood. Dr. James Cheek, former Howard president and now-president emeritus, and Dr. Roger Estep, a veterinarian who served as vice president for development and university relations, weighed in with their ideas. Sophisticated financial insight came from corporate luminary and Chairman of the Board of Trustees Richard D. Parsons. As the chairman of Time Warner, Parsons is one of the most prominent African-Americans in global business whose exploits have been fodder for many cover stories in national business magazines.

Participants were thinking big, indeed. It was clear that they were creating something broad-based that was to be a break from the past.

“We talked about setting a campaign goal of $100 million, then $125 million,” Swygert remembers. “Then we decided, in a burst of overconfidence that the goal should be $250 million. This would give us a stretch goal,” he says. Even the campaign slogan they came up with was tailored to let alumni know just who they were and how much they had to offer. It read: “Leadership for America and the Global Community.” The campaign kicked off in March 2002 with an end date of Dec. 31, 2007.