Introduction to UArctic Giving

UArctic’s operations are financed in various ways, ranging from in-kind contributions of host institutions to stable funding from national governments. The current resources enable us to provide services to our members, run the UArctic Association, and support some research collaboration and mobility activities through projects. However, more funding would allow the network to carry out a broader array of activities both in education and research, and also provide us more flexibility.

For the past couple of years UArctic has been actively developing a philanthropic fundraising program. Our aim is to find private support for key strategic areas of our network: mobility, youth engagement, and Thematic Networks collaboration. We also aim to support small northern institutions, boosting their engagement and collaboration within UArctic, as well as to bring the best minds together through UArctic Seminars. Our philanthropic fundraising efforts will therefore directly benefit students and faculty at our member institutions.

Thanks to the generous support of our Board member Frederik Paulsen, UArctic has been able to work with a US-based philanthropy consultancy GG+A. With their help and advice, our five-person team has developed a fundraising strategy, built our case for support, and created the structures we need to engage in philanthropic fundraising. These include hiring two full-time staff members: a communications coordinator based at the UArctic International Secretariat at the University of Lapland in Finland, and a philanthropy manager based at the University of Iceland.

At the core of our fundraising strategy are donors with whom we can build a long-term relationship and whose values and interests align with ours. This comes with its own challenges. How do we identify the right persons? How do we get their attention? How do we best build a relationship with them, and what will it look like? It is a process that takes time and effort, but in the end will mean more stable support and a solid donor base that will help us do more.

Compared to North America, this kind of fundraising is still relatively unfamiliar in the Nordic countries where the majority of our team is based. Developing the tools we need and teaching ourselves to work and communicate in a new way has not always been easy. However, we are steadily moving in the right direction. We have one successful donor cultivation event behind us, with more events being planned, and we have received our first five-figure donations. Six UArctic Thematic Networks and Institutes have worked with us extensively in the pilot phase of our fundraising program. This spring we have also provided online trainings to all Thematic Network and Institute leads, so all can benefit from the lessons learned. 

As Frederik Paulsen put it in his Shared Voices interview last year, UArctic membership has the intellectual firepower to help solve the problems humanity is confronted with. Through engaging in philanthropy, we can find new ways to finance collaboration between our members – working together to solve those problems, and building knowledge for a strong, engaged and dynamic North.

Visit https://giving.uarctic.org to read more about UArctic’s fundraising and our priorities, and help us spread the word!