Fundraising Report
From the Director of Development
Jenny Tudge (1986)
Dear Alumni, Donors and Friends,
This report gives us the opportunity to do three things:
to demonstrate the transformational impact of every single £1 donated.
to say thank you to all those who have made a donation to the College in the last year.
to encourage those who have never given to Keble to do so, and to inspire those who have given before to keep on giving!
Not just about the money
The involvement of our alumni and friends in the College today is crucial to the development and strength of the future Keble community. Volunteering as a Year Group Rep is a great way to keep in touch with your friends, make new ones, and keep in contact with the College and the University more widely. Alumni can help in so many ways: giving time and expertise on College committees, taking part in events by speaking, hosting, or just getting some friends together to attend, being a Trustee of the Keble Association, or turning up to play for the Ghosts in the Festival of Sport, singing at the Mitre Club Dinner, or supporting the College crews at Summer VIIIs.
What do our donors choose to support, and why?
TOTAL
£5,140,091
All donations, regardless of how they are given, are allocated to one of our five major project funds:
Student Support (including Access & Outreach projects, bursaries, scholarships and student hardship)
Teaching & Research (including tutorial fellowships, research posts, lectureships and research projects)
Capital Projects (including buildings, refurbishment and equipment, sustainability projects)
Student Life (extra-curricular activities, clubs and societies, the Keble Association study grants, arts leadership awards)
Unrestricted (wherever the College needs it most).
As donors, you have complete control about which aspect of the College you want to support, and of course there are multiple projects within the main categories. This report attempts to give you the headline numbers and, importantly, the individual case studies and stories where the funds donated have had a real and marked impact on our current students. You can click on the project fund buttons at the bottom of the page to quickly access these stories. I hope you’ll be engaged by the headlines, and inspired by the details.
How much was donated and how?
The donations received in 2023-24 reached a total of £5.14m, with £970k coming via major gifts, £1.46m coming via the Talbot Fund, and £2.71m from legacies.
19% Major Gifts
53% Legacies
28% Talbot Fund (Regular Giving)
The legacies included a bequest of £1.5m from the estate of Honorary Fellow Victoria de Breyne. Since the closure of the 2023-24 accounts a further £2.5m has been received from her estate. The Governing Body will deliberate how this most generous gift can be put to the best possible use for the College and our current and future students.
Also included was a bequest of £800k from the estate of alumnus Ivor Keith Whitford who matriculated in 1968. We have used this legacy to partially endow Professor Faulkner’s Chemistry Fellowship; you can read more about the importance of this funding in the Keble brick here.
In 2023-24, 19.5% of our contactable alumni made a donation, with 239 individuals making a gift for the first time. Many of these first-time donors were our leaving students. Of those who sat their finals this summer, 97% made a gift to the Talbot Fund in return for their foam Keble brick. We look forward to celebrating with them as they graduate in May next year.
19.5% of our contactable alumni made a gift
97% of leaving undergraduates made a gift
239 were first time donors
One of the most encouraging developments in recent years has been the growing awareness of the Talbot Fund amongst the current students. The successful Leavers’ Gift programme started in 2013 with the undergraduates, and every year over 90% of the finalists have joined in and made a contribution. The University has awarded prizes for the highest giving rates among leaving students across the colleges and Keble has ranked in the top three every year. This success brings prize money which we have ploughed back into the Talbot Fund by supporting the JCR and MCR freshers’ week activity programme. We also take the opportunity to use Talbot Fund branding on the fresher’s T-shirts. It is important that every Keble student realises just how much of their experience, both academic and social, is supported by the generosity of the alumni.
Fresher’s week t-shirt sponsorship: a warm welcome from the Talbot Fund
Generational giving is a vitally important part of the Talbot Fund and we recognise longevity of continuous giving (regardless of amount), by awarding dinosaur pin-badges to all those who have supported the College for 10 years consecutively. To the end of 2023-24 we had 1,054 dinosaurs!
Many alumni take the opportunity to support the Talbot Fund by taking part in the Telethon or Giving Day
During the Telethon our student call team spoke to 451 alumni resulting in 198 (43%) donations, of which 159 were regular and 39 were single gifts. The Telethon raised £122k in ‘cash received’ and ‘pledges’ over 5 years. We also received a matching gift of £29k to promote regular giving (£500 unlocked for each regular gift made), resulting in total new funds raised of £151k.
The Giving Day in early July raised £103k from 252 donors. Grateful thanks to everyone who took part and in particular those alumni who provided match or challenge funds to encourage others to give.
How much does the Alumni & Development Office cost to run?
We raise £7
for every £1 spent
2023-24 saw us generate £7 for every £1 spent on fundraising, alumni relations and communications. We are a lean machine in terms of our operational costs and can only offer an engaging and interesting programme of events with help and assistance from our alumni and friends. If we can save money on a venue for an event, it makes a huge difference. If you are interested in supporting an event, or have access to a London venue, please do get in touch with Krista. Warm thanks to everyone who supports the team in this way. We couldn’t be anywhere near this efficient without your help, so thank you.
The College Endowment at 31st July 2024
The College endowment is used to provide a sustainable level of annual drawdown to offset underlying operating losses and leave the College with positive net total cashflow each year. It is essential that the endowment shows real annual growth after the annual drawdown to the operating account. This must be delivered through strong investment returns and generation of new endowment monies. The endowment is more than 90% invested with Oxford University Endowment Management (OUEM) with a few smaller legacy holdings and some property exposure.
On a positive note, we are pleased to confirm that the value of the Keble endowment at year end had increased to £66.3m from £61.4m last year. The £4.9m increase in the value of the endowment this year was driven by income from investments and new endowment ‘gifts received’ of £1.7m.
Against this positivity, Keble continues to face significant financial challenges. The College support teams are working hard to maximise and diversify our commercial income streams, for example through the introduction of summer schools during the long vacation, but as one of the colleges with a relatively small endowment (£66m, of which only £23m is unrestricted), we are more reliant than most on philanthropy.
Endowment Total
35% Unrestricted (£23m) — generates £805k pa @3.15%
65% Restricted (£43m) — generates £1.5m pa @3.15%
TOTAL
£66m
I know my colleagues in the Alumni & Development team, and across the College, join me in sending a huge thank you to everyone who has donated this year, whether on a spend-down basis, or to the endowment. Your support is absolutely vital to ensuring we can deliver our mission of providing excellent and compassionate education to all, regardless of background, and maintain and improve our wonderful historic buildings.
Thank you for including Keble in your philanthropy, and for taking the time to keep in touch with your College.