When the coronavirus pandemic threw the world into utter chaos last March, forcing all businesses to revisit their financial plans, members of the St. Louis U. High advancement team had to readdress their plans for the Go Forth Campaign and how to fund major Go Forth renovation projects such as the Dill Center for Academic Success. 

Launched publicly in 2018 after years of strategic visioning, SLUH set an ambitious goal of raising $70 million dollars to sustain the Jesuit mission of SLUH and usher the Backer Memorial campus into the 21st century with new renovation projects. 

“Go Forth was envisioned to raise the most amount of money that school has ever done in a single campaign, which at that point was $70 million,” said SLUH president Alan Carruthers. 

Over the past three years, over $60 million of the $70 million has been pledged already, meaning that donors have committed money and are giving their donations in  increments over a period of time. 

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in March, it forced the Advancement office to reassess the Go Forth campaign and their strategy for finishing major construction projects like the Dill Center; a project transforming the Old Cafeteria into new administrative offices and new offices for both college and school counseling, which had begun last year. 

“Like every organization across the world right now, we've had to take a long sober look at the (economic) environment that we're operating within,” said Agniel. “And, that's made us a lot more cautious and conservative in terms of how we want to move forward with major projects like (the Dill Center).” 

While reassessing SLUH’s current budgetary status and how to proceed with further renovation projects, the Board of Trustees  determined they would pay for the Go Forth projects when cash was in hand, in order to ensure SLUH’s long-term viability and ensure that the school would not have to worry about debt in the future. 

“With the kind of demographic realities we're facing in St. Louis, a relatively stagnant population with a smaller population of boys, both in parochial and in public schools, particularly in the 2008 [and] post-2008 birth dates period, we realized that we should be very careful with funding any projects by utilizing debt financing,” said Carruthers. “We're really shying away from debt financing at this moment, particularly with the shift in demographics and us not knowing how many kids will attend in the future.”

Avoiding debt financing means that SLUH will wait to have all of the money necessary to fund a project in hand before beginning it.

“It is a very cautious approach, but we feel like the current circumstance demands prudence,” said Agniel.

The pandemic has also made fundraising difficult, with the economic downturn and tumultuous market that the world has experienced, especially in the early days of the pandemic last March.

“It (the pandemic) created uncertainty with a lot of people. It created uncertainty with individuals, but it also created uncertainty in the market,” said Carruthers. “We have our endowment, plus many of our donors’ investments are in the market in equities or bonds, and so through the pandemic we have been on quite the ride. We've had, you know, some of the biggest lows that we've seen since 2008, and we've also had some of the biggest highs.”

Despite the initial decrease in financial gifts, with almost a 30 percent drop during May and June, the SLUH advancement team has seen an uptick in the number of donations in the past three months. 

Because of the financial strain on many SLUH families due to the pandemic, the advancement team decided to divert more Go Forth funds to the financial aid program in order to help SLUH families who are struggling.

“We budgeted more for financial aid than we had in previous years, and made plans to provide extra support to families who might confront the crisis,” said Agniel.

Despite having to put the Dill Center on pause and push back the start date of other key projects, the advancement team is hopeful that work will begin again on 4970 Oakland Avenue in the very near future. 

“We are actually going to start a major part of the project this spring we believe, which is the roof,” said Carruthers. “I know that doesn't sound as romantic for students, but as you can see if you go in the chapel when it's raining, there is leakage.”

Already, funds that have been secured through Go Forth have been used throughout the SLUH building starting initiatives such as the College Counseling Department, building the Innovation Lab, funding the Arabic program and creating the Director of Global Education position. 

“The Go Forth fundraising is directly responsible for the creation of my department,” said head of College Counseling Kevin Crimmins. “It has allowed us to provide the resources we need in order to best serve the students.”

The relatively quick return to construction, and the continued success of the whole Go Forth campaign would not have been possible without the generous support of many donors. Without their gracious support, SLUH would not be able to sustain its mission. 

“Many people give to SLUH because the trajectory of their life was positively altered by what they experienced when they were students here,” said Agniel. “It shows that the great spirit and power of SLUH that you feel today is something that is decades and centuries old. And, it's something that our alumni and donors  are supporting generously today, so that spirit and power of SLUH will be maintained and grown in the future."