Schools eye corporate partnerships

CROWN JEWEL: Alex and Ani Design Manager Emily McKenna, left, talks with company owner Carolyn Rafaelian. The company is giving Bryant $1 million over 10 years. / PBN FILE PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD
CROWN JEWEL: Alex and Ani Design Manager Emily McKenna, left, talks with company owner Carolyn Rafaelian. The company is giving Bryant $1 million over 10 years. / PBN FILE PHOTO/BRIAN MCDONALD

As part of their never-ending efforts to forge relationships with likely donors, colleges and universities actively seek donations from targeted businesses, but a $1 million gift spread out over 10 years remains a rare prize in the field of corporate donations.
Alex and Ani Inc., based in Cranston, named one of the nation’s fastest-growing companies in 2011 by Inc. Magazine, announced late last month that it is giving $1 million – $100,000 in each of the next 10 years – to Bryant University in Smithfield to support the school’s well-recognized international-studies program.
“Bryant offers local, unparalleled expertise for any serious business to access and leverage in its international efforts,” said Giovanni Feroce, CEO of Alex and Ani, known for its expandable bangles, earrings and necklaces, made in America. “As we try to develop our markets, [Bryant] is going to be a major asset to us.”
At Bryant, James Damron, vice president of university advancement, heads a full-time staff of eight employees, including development officers whose job it is to solicit donations from individuals and corporations, with the majority coming from Bryant alumni. The Alex and Ani gift was unsolicited.
“The focus at Bryant is on [donations from] individuals, that’s where most of the potential is,” Damron said.
At Brown University, individual rather than corporate gifts also make up “the lion’s share” of donations, according to William Layton, executive director of corporate and foundation relations for the Ivy League school. A separate office for university advancement handles individual gifts.
Layton heads a staff of six full-timers that solicits specific gifts from foundations and corporations, researching and writing proposals that align Brown’s needs with the goals of donating parties. For example, a private corporation involved in robotics or materials science would be approached for funds to support similar programs in Brown’s engineering division.
He estimated that corporate donations make up only about 10 percent of the total donations Brown receives. In each of the last five years, corporate giving to Brown has ranged from $1.98 million to $5.5 million annually, Layton said.
He added that he and his staff are always “on the lookout” for companies whose contributions would strengthen what Brown offers.
The Alex and Ani gift to Bryant came about in part because Ralph Rafaelian, the father of Carolyn Rafaelian, who owns the jewelry-making business and designs its products, graduated from Bryant in 1955. The conference room at Bryant’s Center for International Business has been renamed the Ralph Rafaelian ’55 Conference Room. In addition, Feroce noted that the business works closely with the Chafee center on a number of international initiatives.
The company took part in the November trade mission to Israel sponsored by the Chafee Center and the state. Feroce has agreed to chair Bryant’s World Trade Day in 2012, a day devoted to discussion of international business, and said the company looks forward to taking part in the Bryant Women’s Summit scheduled in March.
In the spring, Alex and Ani became one of 17 companies to partner with Bryant’s International Business Senior Practicum, a hands-on businesses lab in which seniors majoring in international business serve as consultants to help companies meet global challenges.
Besides the promised funding, the university can benefit in other ways by forging close relationships with local businesses.
“Corporate partnerships like this one with Alex and Ani give our students opportunities to practice what they learn in the classroom,” said Jose-Marie Griffiths, vice president for academic affairs at Bryant. “The company is an especially relevant role model. Its domestic success is turning into an international success in front of our students’ eyes, and its commitment to corporate philanthropy offers Bryant students an example to follow.”
The company’s experience is an example of the “multidimensional relationship” that Damron said donors generally seek with a university.
Mutual interests can include recruitment of future company workers from the student body and targeted research projects done at the request of a business, as well as volunteer and professional-development opportunities for university workers at the donating firm.
At Amica Insurance in Lincoln, Vince Burks, senior assistant vice president in corporate communications, said the biggest gain his firm receives from donating to colleges and universities – such as establishment several years ago of the Amica Center for Career Education at Bryant – is recruitment of future employees.
“For most students that age, insurance may not be at the front of their minds,” Burks said. “It doesn’t seem very sexy or glamorous, but there is a lot more to it than people might think.” Donating to a school like Bryant “gets our name out there” when graduates start job searches, he said. Still, the economy does play a major role in corporate giving. And despite the benefits of donating to colleges and universities, Amica for one has decided to focus its philanthropy henceforth on three areas of particularly dire need: food, shelter and fuel. Amica will not be giving as much to colleges and universities, Burks said.
“We’ve been getting so many requests for assistance that we decided to hone in on what we see as the areas of most dire need,” he explained.
Companies should think of philanthropy as an investment, Damron said. Since the recession, he’s noticed that both individual and corporate donors are “more discerning” about where their money ends up. “We must demonstrate that we’re using their money wisely and our students and our programs are succeeding,” he said.
Naming a building for a donor does not offer much incentive to donors, according to Damron. “There is a small percentage to whom the recognition is important, but it is less of a motivating factor than people might think,” he said. As for tax credits, they’re “way down the list” of what motivates people to give, he said.
At Brown, Layton said there is no one area and no one industry that the university focuses on to solicit corporate donations. He believes the university could do more to encourage corporate giving, especially in the international arena.
Formal agreements between universities and financial institutions are another way that corporations support higher education.
Sovereign Bank, for example, has three agreements in Rhode Island supporting: Bryant University’s study-abroad program; diversity scholarships at Providence College; and the international advanced-research institutes at Brown University.
The Boston-based bank has agreements with 24 academic institutions in the United States, and its parent company, Banco Santander SA of Spain, has 978 partnership agreements in 16 countries with colleges and universities. In 2011, the bank in this country funded more than 800 scholarships and grants, according to information it provided.
“The core of Sovereign’s corporate social-responsibility program is the belief that the best investment that can be made in the future is in higher education,” said Eduardo Garrido, director of Santander Universities U.S. •

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