Houck coming after raising $3 billion for Yale University
After raising $3.5 billion for Yale University, Jancy Houck has been hired as USC’s new vice president of development and alumni relations. The post was filled five months after Michelle Dodenhoff left the post, leaving behind $655 million raised for USC’s $1 billion capital campaign, Carolina’s Promise. As of Aug. 9, that total had risen to $756.5 million, with $149.1 million given during the financial year ending June 30, a record fundraising year.
Houck will be paid $300,000a year for five years. Dodenhoff was paid $257,500 a year and was in the vice president position for about three years before deciding to step down.
With its sixth consecutive yearly fundraising record, the Division of Development and Alumni Relations is nearing its $1 billion goal quickly. Houck’s Ivy League experience will be helpful in completing that campaign by or before its 2015 deadline and in future campaigns, University President Harris Pastides said, citing his experience receiving Yale’s fundraising mailers as an alumnus himself.
“I get all the alumni material and I get all the solicitations and I think they do a very great job,” Pastides said. “We do, too, but I’m hoping she’ll bring some of those tricks of the trade to USC.”
Yale’s regular solicitation also made Houck a competitive candidate for the job at USC, Pastides said.
“The consistency, the being on message and … being a little more relentless. If you say no as a donor, there’s always that little extra push,” Pastides said. “They expect if you graduate from that university, a lot of who you are today is because of that, so they really, really want you to give.”