Mary Levin photo
Connie Kravas, vice president for advancement, interviews Campaign UW Chair Bill Gates Sr., ’49, ’50.
When you were a student in the ’40s, could you have imagined the UW would raise $2.68 billion in your lifetime?
No. I’m not even sure I could pronounce “billion” back in those days.
Of all the gifts given during the campaign, do you have a favorite?
No, I have two. I think the gift that was made to the School of Social Work, to try to mend the problems with foster children, was a particularly touching one. I don’t think anybody who’s knowledgeable at all is unaware of the difficulty of raising foster children. The other gift doesn’t have quite the same poignancy because it’s so big, but Students First is wonderful. It’s a huge scholarship program for kids who otherwise would have a hard time affording this place. And we’re talking not about a couple of kids, we’re talking about hundreds of kids. Thousands.
What’s the most unusual gift you’ve heard about?
The change-ringing bells at Gerberding Hall, of course. Very unique. I personally respond to it with a lot of enthusiasm because I have, like some of the other older residents of this town, a very, very powerful and warm memory of the bells ringing up in the little tower on the north end of the campus. That was part of campus life, that sound. And now we have this magnifi cent piece of equipment, eight bells and eight different notes of the scale, and it actually takes eight people to really play them right. But it’s awesome. The sound is just glorious.
You’ve been so successful in getting people to say yes. What’s your secret?
You know, it’s both a science and an art to do effective fundraising, and we have a group here on the campus that is as good at it as anybody in the world. I really don’t attribute the success of the campaign to anything that I did. There are thousands of alums and friends of this University who have a warm and generous feeling about it. To me, the most interesting thing is the number of people who became involved. We had nearly 300,000 different people or entities that participated in the campaign. That number, to me, is every bit as impressive as the $2.68 billion.
If someone asked you why they should give to a University that’s already raised $2.68 billion, what would you tell them?
If someone suggested that we already had more money than we need, I would say, “That’s certainly not true.” We have a list of another thousand things that would be wonderful to do if we had more philanthropy here. We would have no trouble making good use of another 500 professorships, for example. Then there’s the new College of the Environment, stem-cell research, the M.D./Ph.D. program. There literally is no end to it, and it’s all good stuff.
While some of the work you did for the campaign was undoubtedly time-consuming and maybe trying, was there some fun along the way?
Oh, sure. Every task that led to a “yes” and a check was fun. That’s what you get up in the morning to do. When it happens, it’s fun.