In my early professional career, I worked in the development office at Greenville University. Among the outstanding people I worked with was Howard Krober, who had worked in development for decades and often shared bits of wisdom over coffee.
I’ll never forget him saying, “you don’t want to build the barn and lose the farm.” He explained that if the effort to raise money for a new building is done at the expense of general funding needs, you might have that new building (the barn) but no longer have the school (the farm).
That concern for the overall well-being of an institution is why we pursue all of our special funding projects within the framework of the Build On… Comprehensive Campaign. A gift toward Build On supports all of Oakdale’s funding needs – building projects, scholarships and financial aid, and general ministry expenses.
Build On… has a hefty goal – $3.4 million! – but instead of focusing on that number, we like to talk about whatever urgent need is directly before us. There are two urgent needs:
- We’ll build May Hall in two phases.
- Phase I will cost $1.1 million.
- As soon as we reach the $1 million funding threshold, we will begin.
- We need $45,000 to reach that $1 million threshold.
- During this school year, we will need a total of $300,000 in scholarship/financial aid/general ministry support funding.
- Student financial needs at the beginning of this year were greater than usual. This fall we had the joy of enrolling many students for whom scholarship and financial aid were absolutely necessary. Our joyfully accepted burden for these students brings our fundraising goal for this year to $300,000, or $35,000 by October 1.
