The Fall Auction is one of the many fundraising activities run by the Advancement Office.
Very few students on campus know what goes on inside the little white house across the parking lot from the admissions office. That might be because they are more likely to interact with this office after they graduate than while they’re here as students.
The Advancement office is what is ensconced in the house, along with some faculty apartments. Basically, the Advancement office raises money for the school.
“About 5000 alumni have graduated from Canterbury, and we want them to continue to feel proud to be part of the Canterbury community,” said Ms. Loprinzo, Associate Director of Advancement & Senior Director of Alumni Relations. “We are essentially the communicators between alumni, parents, and the school as we continually ask for their generosity to fulfill Canterbury’s mission.”
Advancement raises money for the school through a variety of initiatives including the Annual Fund, continued alumni relations, as well as engaging alumni, parents, faculty, and grandparents with new things happening on campus, like the new student commons, for example.
Every donation or gift, no matter the size, that is raised towards the Annual Fund gets funneled into the budget of the school. Everything from cereal nights to supplemental professional training for faculty is aided by the Canterbury Annual Fund.
“Tuition doesn’t cover the entire cost of educating and boarding a student so Advancement has to fill in the gap through the Canterbury Annual Fund,” said Ms. Loprinzo. “Whether it is something financial, social, athletic, academic, or residential, it is most likely touched and aided by the Canterbury Annual Fund.”
A new initiative the Advancement office is undertaking is the Support 1915 campaign, headed by Ms. Heslin ’96, the Director of Alumni Relations and Annual Giving. This campaign runs from November 19th to December 15th, in honor of the year Canterbury was founded (1915). All gifts donated to this campaign goes towards the Canterbury Annual Fund. For this campaign, Advancement needs 500 donations of any amount to obtain a match challenge gift of $100,000.
“Everything about the campaign will be updated on social media on both current channels and alumni accounts using #support1915,” said Ms. Heslin. “And as an alumnae myself, I really feel like I am doing what I can to give back to the community through this campaign.”
Another important fundraising event is the Mission and Momentum Capital Campaign that is specifically raising money for the new student commons building.
“If $10 million is raised by the Canterbury community, a match donor will donate another $10 million towards the building,” said Ms. Loprinzo. “And this is what we really need to do – put a shovel in the ground and start making this building a reality.”
There are currently six people that make up Advancement, including Ms. Heslin, and Ms. Loprinzo. The other four people in Advancement are researchers, support team members, or database experts.
They also run such important annual events as homecoming weekend, parents’ weekends, grandparents’ weekend, the fall auction, the Athletics Hall of Fame induction and alumni weekend and class reunions in the spring and summer. Advancement handles everything from catering to name tags, so perfecting the endless small details is a challenging job.
“Any work you do is challenging, but we are driven so much by quantitative goals, like raising the $10 million or finding 500 donors. It adds more pressure to an already challenging task,” said Ms. Loprinzo. “However, it’s such a great purpose that brings so much to the quality of the school. We believe that students should get the best experience they could possibly have at Canterbury.”
So, while you may not know the people in the little white house while you’re here on campus, you will get to know them after you graduate!
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