UW-Oshkosh: Proven Fundraiser Named UW-Oshkosh Foundation President

CONTACT: Chancellor Richard H. Wells, (920) 424-0200

OSHKOSH – Arthur Rathjen, National Benevolent Foundation (NBA) associate vice president for development, has been named president of the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh Foundation and executive director of development. The appointment is effective June 26.

Rathjen, with more than 20 years of successful fundraising experience in higher education and nonprofit organizations, joins the UW-Oshkosh Foundation as it prepares to launch it largest capital campaign ever.

“Arthur successfully led two, major capital campaigns at other universities,” said UW-Oshkosh Chancellor Richard H. Wells. “He has extensive experience at all levels of annual giving, alumni affairs, capital campaigns, major gifts solicitation, planned giving and nonprofit management. He’s just the person we need as we continue this new, ambitious chapter in our university’s history.”

Rathjen has been at the NBA since 1999, where his duties have included expanding the nonprofit social and health service agency’s fundraising program. NBA is the 49th largest nonprofit in the nation and the largest in St. Louis.

As vice president for institutional advancement at Westminster College in Pennsylvania from 1993 to 1998, Rathjen’s many duties included successfully completing a $35-million capital campaign.

As assistant vice president for development at Eastern Illinois University from 1989 to 1993, he helped launch and successfully complete that campus’ first capital campaign of $25 million.

At both Eastern and Westminster, Rathjen’s colleagues give him primary credit for securing several, seven-figure gifts, including one of $4 million.

UW-Oshkosh Foundation Board President Walter Scott, president of W. F. Coe & Associates, said the Foundation board was impressed with Rathjen’s organizational skills as a manager and his vast experience working with university foundations.

“Mr. Rathjen’s success in fundraising and so many other areas of university advancement make him a perfect fit for this position,” Scott said. “He will help UW-Oshkosh provide northeastern Wisconsin with the more highly skilled and educated citizens and cultural resources it will need to prosper.”

With the university preparing to launch a multimillion capital campaign to help build a new academic building and support student scholarships and faculty/student scholarly projects, Rathjen will lead stepped-up efforts to increase Foundation donations. From 2000 to 2005, annual gifts and pledges to the UW-Oshkosh Foundation increased from $1.7 to $4.9 million.

Rathjen said he and his family look forward to becoming active in the community, and he looks forward to working with faculty, administration, the foundation board and others to achieve university goals.

“The advances this university has made in the past few years, along with the strength and vitality of this region, made this an opportunity I could not pass up,” Rathjen said. “I believe strongly in what this campus offers: affordable, comprehensive education, lifelong learning and individualized student development.”

Rathjen also was assistant director of annual giving (1983-1984), director of annual giving (1987-1988) and centennial campaign coordinator (1984-1987) at Alma College in Michigan; and director of annual giving at Pennsylvania State University (1988-1989).

At Westminster, the last campus he worked at, he was a member of the president’s executive staff, chair of the development advisory committee, chair of the inauguration committee and a member of planning, budget and institutional research committees.

Rathjen also is a member of the Pew Charitable Trust Higher Education Round Table.

Rathjen earned his bachelor’s degree at Alma College in 1982 and a master’s degree in educational administration at Eastern Illinois in 1992.