MMA to pursue increase in its annual fund

CASTINE – Last-minute gifts from Maine Maritime Academy trustees on Thursday helped the college to meet its $150,000 goal for the annual fund.

That was the largest amount ever raised for the academy’s annual fund appeal, but Chairman William Haggett warned that in the face of rising costs and nearly flat funding from the state, the college will need to increase that source of revenue in the future.

The academy will attempt to more than double annual fund giving within the next five years.

“We need to do a lot more in the way of finding revenue,” Haggett said. “And the annual fund needs to become a much larger percentage of our revenue stream.”

Despite efforts at efficiency, the cost of operating the academy continues to rise, and MMA will need to seek additional revenues to balance those costs, he said.

“We’re still seeing inflationary growth and in certain areas we’re going to see that continue at a rapid rate in the future,” he said.

Health insurance, fuel costs and negotiated contracts will continue to increase those operating costs, Haggett said, adding that the academy cannot expect to see increased state funding to match the rise in operating costs. In recent years, state allocations for MMA have remained static, with some minor increases and at least one decrease in funding.

“It’s quite obvious that the state’s ability to fund increases on its side of our revenue stream is going to be very limited in the future,” he said.

The trustees already approved a 7 percent tuition increase that will be effective this fall, but, Haggett said, the board wants to avoid funding budget increases on the backs of the students and their families.

“We want to continue to offer an education that is affordable for the average Maine student,” he said.

The academy does receive some federal funding through the U.S. Maritime Administration, but most of that funding is earmarked for the operation of the college’s training vessel State of Maine. MMA’s operating budget receives just $200,000 in federal funding, although, according to President Leonard Tyler, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that would increase that general funding by $100,000 next year and increase it to a total $500,000 in three years.

That measure, however, does not include increased funding for fuel for the training vessel at MMA and other state maritime academies around the country.

“We had requested an additional $350,000 for fuel costs,” Tyler said. “That’s not in the House bill, but we’re hoping our senators or senators from one of the states with a maritime academy can put it in the Senate version.”

The academy’s budget for the coming year is $22.5 million.

The academy’s new fiscal year starts today, and MMA’s Chief Advancement Officer Ellie Courtemanche said she already had begun development on a plan to increase annual fund giving.

“We need to grow the annual fund significantly,” she said. “It needs to be at $500,000 or $600,000 within the next five or six years. I don’t see how we can get away without doing that.”

The annual fund provides a small but critical boost to the academy’s operating budget. Funds are used solely to support the daily operations of the academy, ranging from faculty salaries and departmental budgets to campus maintenance and waterfront operations.

In recent years, the academy has focused efforts on its $22 million capital campaign and on increased giving for student scholarship funds. This new effort will focus attention on the annual fund and, although details of this year’s annual fund campaign are still being developed, will seek to increase alumni giving to the annual fund.

Alumni will be encouraged to provide unrestricted support to the annual fund so those gifts can go directly toward operations. One of the goals of the plan will be to increase the number of $1,000 alumni donors to 10 percent of the college’s 6,000 alumni.

In addition, Courtemanche said, the academy will look at creating a campaign not just for capital projects but to build a general operations endowment.

Courtemanche said she will have an annual fund plan ready to present to the trustees when they meet in August.