This text is part of the special Philanthropy section
With new members on its board of directors, the Université de Sherbrooke Foundation wishes to double its objective for its next campaign. After raising $ 115 million in a fundraiser that ended in 2018, the organization now aims to raise $ 250 million by 2023.
“We are going from single to double, but with a new direction and new unifying projects,” summarizes Daniel Asselin, senior director of philanthropic development at the Fondation de l’Université de Sherbrooke.
Three members, all former graduates of the establishment, join the ranks of the foundation’s board of directors. They are Geneviève Brouillard, Josée Darche and Alain Hade, whose appointment was announced on October 21. “We wanted to have people who are labeled with the University of Sherbrooke, but in different niches,” explains Mr. Asselin.
By doubling the objective for the next campaign, the foundation considers that its achievement is “realistic” and wishes to exceed the results already obtained in the past. To give itself the means to achieve its ambitions, it hired new staff and relied on technologies. “We did not have philanthropic managers in all sectors of activity. If we didn’t have the right tools today, it would be excessively difficult to work, even while improving the human resources team, ”explains Mr. Asselin.
With this new structure, the body also aims to provide more effective action. “It will make the work tighter for Mr. Asselin and his collaborators. We are here to simplify their task, ”adds the Chairman of the Foundation’s board of directors, Vincent Joli-Coeur.
Several projects underway
The coming years will also announce several projects on the campus, in particular the innovation zone, which aims to promote the development of quantum sciences and technologies. “We have major projects that will affect several faculties in terms of their impact,” explains Mr. Asselin. He adds that the innovation zone will create links with new donors, focusing on projects that will put the university in the spotlight. “In philanthropy, it is certain that it will help us,” he predicts.
The Foundation also has objectives anchored in the current challenges of society. Thus, the next campaign will focus on several projects around the themes of climate change and sustainable development, technological transformation, health care and living together.
The foundation will also finance projects of the UNESCO Chair in the prevention of radicalization and violent extremism, which the university launched in 2018. But for the establishment, living together also aims to integrate the elderly. One of the important issues is aging, which will be at the heart of several initiatives.
For Mr. Joli-Coeur, the various projects on which the university is working now allow students from several disciplines to work together. “We did everything to break down the silos that existed in the past,” explains the chairman of the foundation’s board of directors. And according to him, these projects will offer the establishment a visibility that will extend beyond Quebec and Canada.
Breathing new life with the pandemic
Far from slowing down the Foundation’s activities, the health crisis has even given new life to philanthropy, says Mr. Asselin. “Those who suffered a lot were the small organizations which were less well structured and which cannot go digital,” he believes.
Mr. Asselin also attributes the Foundation’s success in the context of the pandemic to the university’s large pool of benefactors since its creation in 1954. “With the different cohorts that we have, at the age when our donors have returned, we have a very strong potential for major individual donations and planned donations, ”he illustrates.
He also believes that the attachment that alumni have to the university will lead to new philanthropic opportunities. “We will make efforts to reach out to all the people who havealma mater Sherbrooke stuck to the heart, ”predicts Mr. Asselin. Thus, an employee of the Foundation will devote himself to planned gifts. “We see a very important opportunity to slip into a major campaign, at a time that I think is favorable. “