Alderson-Broaddus College
A Case Study: Development Audit and Feasibility Study

About the client:

Alderson-Broaddus College is a private liberal arts college in Philippi, West Virginia, that is affiliated with the American Baptist Churches. The college is committed to attracting successful students to its high-quality liberal arts program and “dedicated to serving first generation college students, the economically underprivileged, and the academically underprepared.”

Context:

After a critical period in the college’s history, where right-sizing was the priority rather than development, and the development office was largely underachieving, the college decided to initiate a large campaign with the lofty goal of raising $24 million. The college hired Johnson, Grossnickle and Associates (JGA) to advise.

Project goals:

JGA conducted a development audit to evaluate the institutional readiness, notably staff capacity and structure, for a major campaign. After the audit, Alderson-Broaddus also retained JGA to conduct a feasibility study to test the $24 million goal.

JGA approach:

Through interviews with many audiences, including current and former board members, civic and business leaders, foundation representatives, current donors, faculty, alumni and more, JGA developed a series of recommendations that were included in the development audit and feasibility study.  As a result of the development audit, key recommendations included increasing staff in key roles, conducting electronic wealth screening of the database (the first such screening conducted in the college’s history), and significantly increasing the number of personal major gift contacts. In the feasibility study, JGA recommended a campaign goal of $15 million with the knowledge that the appropriate level of investment and commitment by the college would lead to much higher gains. In March of 2003, the college formally began the quiet phase of their new campaign, Renewing the Promise: the Campaign for Alderson-Broaddus.

Outcomes:

JGA and Alderson-Broaddus’ work on the two planning steps allowed the college to build its internal capabilities, to better understand its external constituencies, to appropriately calibrate the timing and dollar goal for the campaign, to engage volunteer leadership at a high level, and to ultimately raise $24 million.

In 2005, JGA conducted a refresher study to evaluate the progress of the campaign and to make recommendations for campaign-end strategies. Alderson-Broaddus enthusiastically embraced the recommendations in the refresher study, just as they had done with the development audit and feasibility study. Through its commitment to a disciplined fund-raising approach, Alderson-Broaddus successfully raised more than $25 million by the official campaign end in April 2008.

With this new influx of financial resources, the college renovated the Kemper Redd Science Building and greatly improved its endowed scholarship offerings to students. The college is dedicated to continued growth with more new facilities and resources by using the energy and optimism created by the success of the campaign.

Upon conclusion of Renewing the Promise: the Campaign for Alderson-Broaddus, JGA was retained to conduct a campaign assessment for the college. The assessment examined opportunities and challenges Alderson-Broaddus would face in the post-campaign period. It was also an authentic assessment of how successfully the campaign goal was reached.

JGA was proud to be recognized by Alderson-Broaddus as “professional, with a commitment to the overall process that was impressive.”