Who was that beautiful stranger?
Every year, universities across Canada collect millions of dollars in gifts from individuals who, for one reason or another, choose to remain nameless
by Jeff Roberts
Last year, Ryerson University received almost 300,000 historically important black-and-white photographs along with $7 million for a new gallery to house them. More recently, McGill University was given $700,000 by a Nova Scotia woman who wanted the funds to be used to create 40 major scholarships. And south of the border, someone just gave $100 million U.S. to forever end tuition at the Yale School of Music.
Only a handful of people know who made these donations, and they're not telling.
Anonymous donors are part of every capital campaign and donor wall. They are often generous, and are responsible for some of the truly enormous gifts made to institutions of higher education in recent years.
People who wish to remain anonymous seem turned off by the pomp, the hype and the flurry of publications that typically honour large benefactors. Is this a case of incurable shyness? Or do anonymous donors have other reasons to hide their good works?
Though the identity of the donors may never be revealed, we do at least know something about their motivations. If you could look behind the humble "Anonymous" plaque posted among the list of donors on every donor wall, you would find a mix of motives and personality types, according to psychologists and advancement professionals. Alan Marchant, executive director of advancement services at the University of British Columbia, says there are a variety of reasons why people choose to give anonymously.
"They may not want to be bothered by other institutions," says Mr. Marchant. "Other times, people are giving to research in a particular discipline of medicine such as those related to depression or alcoholism, and they don't wish to have their name attached to such a sensitive topic." And some people, he says, "are very, very modest - they just don't want the attention."
Another group of anonymous donors are those who make gifts in recognition of someone else; they don't want their own name to detract attention from the person they wish to honour.
Two Americans - Russ Prince, an independent scholar, and Karen File, a professor of marketing at the University of Connecticut - have done pioneering studies on the behavioural characteristics of philanthropists. In The Seven Faces of Philanthropy (Jossey-Bass, 1994), they identify subsets of givers, including "socialites," "investors" and "communitarians" (or local business leaders). These three groups expect public acknowledgement of their generosity.
But anonymous donors are rarely among them. Instead, nameless givers belong to the categories known as "altruists" and "repayers." In the model, they account respectively for nine and 10 percent of all philanthropists.
Unlike most donors, altruists shun publicity because they believe that philanthropy is a private moral imperative. They may even feel insulted and cease giving if they're called to publicize their activities, say the authors. Mr. Prince and Dr. File quote one individual who stopped giving because "they got me really annoyed when they kept offering me plaques and wanting to name things after me. None of that stuff is why I give."
The other silent spenders, the "repayers," are those looking to give back to institutions that have improved their lives, especially universities. "I went to school there; I learned my profession there. I think they all know exactly why I give to the college," said another subject of the study.
It seems clear that the reclusives of the philanthropy set are out there and willing to share with their alma maters. But how to approach them? Tad Brown, counsel, business affairs and advancement at University of Toronto, says that U of T doesn't have a strategy specifically to court anonymous donors. However, it does deliver an appropriate response when it learns a benefactor does not want to be identified.
"The approach is to give them comfort that their confidentiality will be respected and that we can manage the process to assure that," says Mr. Brown. "It's not an uncommon request. For us, it's about giving an assurance that their names and identity will be kept quite close."
Asked to speculate on what motivates these donors, Mr. Brown says, "Some just don't want personal attention on them - they are truly philanthropic. They are private people. Some of them are prominent people who don't want their name given out, and it's the same with people of more modest means."
Could guilt play a motive in at least some nameless donations? American citizens have had the opportunity to give to a "conscience fund," an account created by the U.S. Treasury that allows them to anonymously make good for past moral transgressions against the government. People have sent in cheques to assuage their guilt over everything from tax avoidance to twice-used postage stamps. Could it be that some anonymous donations arrive to atone for a plagiarized paper or a filched library book?
Alas, those looking for conclusive answers about anonymous benefactors will be disappointed. According to Imagine Canada, a national institution dedicated to promoting philanthropy, there is no quantitative research in this country that profiles donor motivations. The group's director of research, Cathy Barr, says the study of individual benefactors remains a new field. So, for now, anonymous philanthropists can stay unknown.
Mr. Marchant of UBC believes truly anonymous donors aren't as common as the study by Professors Prince and File would suggest. He says that a search of UBC donor records for the last six years turned up just 24 donors who are completely nameless, identified only by a code. Many others who were initially anonymous slowly overcome their stage fright.
"Twenty-five percent just tick the anonymity flag without really thinking about it, but we never really trust those boxes," says Mr. Marchant. He says it is always prudent to clarify the degree to which the donor intends to remain nameless. "Circumstances change and people don't always understand what anonymity means."
Many donors fear that giving their name will result in a barrage of solicitations from other institutions, but they may change their mind when they learn that they are protected by privacy legislation which forbids organizations from sharing the names of donors with other entities. Other donors, when they hear of acquaintances being recognized for contributions similar to their own, decide they don't want to remain anonymous.
At Université de Montréal, major gifts director Chantal Thomas says the university has been encouraging donors to make their philanthropy more public. She says the culture of giving has evolved as donors have come to perceive recognition not as a form of ostentation, but as a way of encouraging others to contribute as well. "It's becoming less and less anonymous," she says. "There's been a switch from a negative to a positive approach that has resulted in a drop in the number of anonymous people."
Even if donor habits are changing, it seems safe to assume that Canadian universities will continue to benefit from the ongoing munificence of silent strangers for awhile yet. And, combined with the dearth of research on individual donors and their motives, anonymous philanthropists can remain comfortably in the shadows.
Anonymous yet generous
Some notable anonymous gifts to Canadian universities
- In 2005, the University of British Columbia received $10 million to fund a UBC Institute of Mental Health.
- In 1993, a graduate from Hong Kong gave McGill University $7 million, the largest anonymous gift the school has received.
- The University of Guelph received almost 280 hectares of farmland in eastern Ontario, valued at more than $500,000 in February. The gift will help develop and strengthen programs in organic agriculture and environmental management.
- In 2000, an anonymous donor gave $750,000 to help establish a library and archives of military history and strategic studies for the federal Museum of the Regiments and the University of Calgary's Centre for Military and Strategic Studies.
- This April, an anonymous donor gave nearly 600 rare Indonesian shadow puppets to Simon Fraser University.
- recent anonymous donation, to be named the Killam Canadian Fund, will support undergraduates at the University of Maine who plan to study for a semester or a year at a Canadian university.
