For Humanity

Dan Renzetti

The Yale Alumni Magazine publishes a short interview with President Maurie McInnis ’96PhD in every issue. In this one, the president discusses the close of Yale’s $7 billion For Humanity fundraising campaign with editor Pippa Jack. View full image

This summer, Yale’s $7 billion For Humanity campaign came to a close, on time and over target. What do you find most remarkable about that?

That it persisted. This campaign was launched in the middle of a global pandemic and is concluding in the middle of a period of generational uncertainty for higher education. And yet the work continued apace. What has been most heartening is the number of alumni volunteers who threw themselves into supporting our development team, all of them unified around a single question: How do we tell the story of why a university like Yale matters? It’s been both gratifying and humbling to see the extraordinary generosity of the people who have made this a success.
 
How will this campaign strengthen affordability?

It’s already made a difference, and it will continue to do so. We had a goal of raising $1.2 billion for student support, and we exceeded that. [Ed. note: numbers were not finalized by press time.] That has enabled us to expand financial aid, including the announcement we made earlier this year about families with annual incomes below $200,000 receiving free tuition. It has also enabled us to make the David Geffen School of Drama tuition-free, and for the Divinity School to meet 100 percent of tuition costs for students with demonstrated need. We’re not finished by any means, but we are deeply grateful for everybody who helped us raise this much.
 
What are two or three top other things this money will make possible?

One of the most significant areas is strengthening the sciences and engineering. While this campaign has touched every corner of campus, the most visible impact—and by far the largest in scale—is on Upper Science Hill. Underway is a 600,000-square-foot facility for the physical sciences and engineering that will enable quantum to have the research space it deserves. Another is the new dramatic arts building, which will begin construction this summer at the corner of York and Crown: a seven-story, 200,000-plus-square-foot building that will bring together the David Geffen School of Drama, the Yale Rep, parts of the undergraduate program of theater, dance, and performance studies, and Yale Dramat rehearsal space. But, of course, this campaign has supported so many great programs: Yale Planetary Solutions, the Tobin Center for Economic Policy, the Poorvu Center, and more. 

Were there trade-offs in deciding what to allocate where?

What you always try to do is find that perfect alignment between Yale’s strategic priorities and the places where a donor wants to have an impact and ensure a legacy. So it’s less about trade-offs and more about finding that alignment.

Gifts have shaped Yale from the beginning. Can you touch on that history?

The first general fundraising effort came in 1818, when a professor named James L. Kingsley wrote a pamphlet titled Remarks on the Present Situation of Yale College; for the Consideration of Its Friends and Patrons. Not long after, there was an 1825 door-to-door solicitation in New Haven and NYC trying to raise money to keep a mineral collection on campus. At the height of the Civil War, a New Haven artist named Nathaniel Jocelyn helped persuade Augustus R. Street to pay for the construction of the nation’s first art school connected to a university: Street Hall, now part of the University Art Gallery. And then, in 1890, members of what ultimately became the Yale Club of New York City started the Yale Alumni Fund, which makes it the oldest annual giving program in the nation. For Humanity is really just the latest chapter in fundraising campaigns that have made an extraordinary difference on this campus. 

Yale’s head of fundraising, Joan O’Neill, will retire at the end of this year. How would you describe her tenure?

She’s the kind of leader an institution like Yale needs to thrive: someone who has deep institutional knowledge and a profound respect for history, but also the courage to make change. She infused data into the work of her team, modernizing many of our processes. What I really admire is the depth of her connection with such a broad array of our alumni and donors, and her sense that success is measured partly in the way a campaign keeps people connected to Yale. That connection is a big part of the strength of this institution. This campaign is such a fitting culmination of Joan’s 39 years here because of its ambition, because it reaffirms how much people care about Yale in a moment of growing skepticism about universities, and because of the way it has helped us articulate why universities like Yale really matter. I can summarize how I feel about Joan with a single word: gratitude.