After getting his bachelor’s degree from James Madison University, Nick Langridge had a tough choice. He had offers for well-paying jobs in business and politics — and a lower-paying one as a fundraiser in his alma mater’s athletics department.
Mr. Langridge, who, as an undergraduate majored in speech communication, said fundraising was “where my heart was.”
He took the job at his college and eventually, at age 33, rose to the top fundraising position, vice president for university advancement. And he did it while completing his M.B.A. and Ph.D. at James Madison.
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Now Mr. Langridge is leading perhaps the biggest project he’s taken on for the university: getting the college’s second major fundraising campaign off the ground. And after a few years of planning the drive and cultivating donors, he and his team are seeing success in attracting large gifts in the campaign’s quiet phase. The university hopes to launch the drive publicly in the next few years.
Last year, James Madison received $18.3 million in commitments from private donors, up from the $10 million average over the prior three years. The university also received commitments for 94 gifts of $25,000 or more, a record for the institution. Since the start of the university’s fiscal year, on July 1, Mr. Langridge’s team has raised more than $12.5 million, and this year’s total may exceed last year’s if certain pledges materialize, Mr. Langridge said.
Much of the university’s fundraising success, he said, is due to more fundraisers: The advancement office has added 10 staff members in the past few years. The university also has invested in information technology that’s provided vital data on donors, he said.
He and others at the university, located in the bucolic community of Harrisonburg in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, are also working to build up the university’s “culture of philanthropy,” getting department heads and other college officials more active in building relationships with donors.
These may not seem like radical steps for nonprofits that have been making these moves for years. But for a small university looking to rejuvenate its advancement office, they’re huge, Mr. Langridge said. Those who work with Mr. Langridge say he’s been vital in bringing much-needed energy to the university’s fundraising and planning efforts.
Mr. Langridge was highly involved in helping the university draft its strategic plan and spreading the word to faculty, students, and alumni, said Jonathan Alger, president of James Madison. The plan hits on improving many academic measures but also includes goals related to fundraising, such as increasing the size of endowments and the number of donors by 2020.
“Nick is someone I consider a real rising star in the field of higher education,” said Mr. Alger, who promoted Mr. Langridge. “He has a tremendous passion for not just JMU but for the mission that we serve. He’s someone that can really tell the story very effectively about our strategic plan.”
This is the first installment of a new series, On the Rise, profiles of people making a difference in the nonprofit world.
Notes: The headline on an earlier version of this article said Mr. Langridge is 33 instead of 37.
