Tod and Cindy Johnson trust President Cohon to put their $5 million gift to good use
Tod Johnson hangs up the phone flummoxed. He has just called another potential Carnegie Mellon donor to help fund new chemistry labs, which the university administration had identified as an important priority. The prospect told Johnson he prefers to make a donation for a personal project, leaving Johnson to wonder what's wrong with his pitch.
He isn't used to rejection. Since graduating from Carnegie Mellon—earning his undergraduate degree majoring in graphic arts management in 1966 and his MSIA in 1967—he has thrived in the business world, becoming chair and CEO of The NPD Group in 1971. The worldwide marketing research firm, based in New York, has 1,100 employees and more than 1,600 clients, ranging from Fortune 100 leaders to smaller businesses.
In fact, Johnson is used to people saying "yes" to his proposals going back to his college days. When he was a rising junior, he met Cindy Schwartz, an incoming freshman, at a party at his fraternity, Tau Delta Phi. It was practically love at first sight; when Johnson proposed to her, she didn't say no.
The couple married after Schwartz's sophomore year. The newlyweds remained at Carnegie Mellon—Tod pursuing his MSIA and teaching behavior sciences to night school students, Cindy earning her BA from the College of Fine Arts in 1968. They say the only reason they could afford to get married while still in school was because of the scholastic fellowship Johnson had received, which matched his tuition. "I felt a responsibility as a result of that," Johnson says.
Well before taking charge at NPD, he began repaying his self-imposed debt by making donations to the university. Not content to be merely a regular financial supporter of his alma mater, he joined the university's Board of Trustees in 1980, the group's youngest member at the time. "That association creates a bond that's a little different than someone who has less involvement with the institution," says Johnson.
It led him in 1994 to chairing The Centennial Campaign for Carnegie Mellon, whose goal was to raise $350 million. And it's his role in that campaign that has him dialing for dollars.
The rejections pile up—not only to pay for new beakers and Bunsen burners for science labs, but also for a proposed university center. The project's main donor has just backed out. Like any successful business person, Johnson presses on despite the rejections. And, in part through his leadership, the campaign funds the University Center, funds the science labs, and funds a whole lot more, too, including the Purnell Center for the Arts, the Roberts Engineering Hall, Posner Hall, and an increase in the endowment for professorships, scholarships, and fellowships. The campaign ends on December 31, 2000, having raised $410.3 million, more than $60 million ahead of its goal.
Along the way, and amid some of those "no" responses, Johnson learned a lesson about giving. From a donor's viewpoint, "there's not much that makes you proud of giving to chemistry labs," he says with a laugh. But from the university's viewpoint, he discovered that those kinds of contributions are just as crucial as the more visible gifts.
It's a lesson he didn't forget when the university announced its $1 billion Inspire Innovation capital campaign last year. To address the dearth of funding where it's most needed, Johnson and his wife, Cindy, helped the campaign during its preceding "quiet phase" by setting up a $5 million fund to be used solely at President Jared Cohon's discretion.
"It was my experience as chair of the previous campaign that made Cindy and me sensitive to wanting to give a gift to the president to use as he wanted," says Johnson. "I remember spending a great deal of time as chair of the previous campaign trying to figure out what project would appeal to a potential donor, and that's very important. But I also realized it wasn't necessarily the most important gift to the university at the time."
The Johnsons wanted their gift to be important, even if it means no buildings or projects will bear their names. "That doesn't mean anything to us," Cindy says. "Our names don't have to be attached. It's the idea of giving to the school we believe in."
Cohon appreciates the Johnsons' vote of confidence to do what's best with their $5 million. "They're not looking for credit in the usual sense," he says, pointing out that it was the Johnsons' gift in the previous fundraising campaign that helped pay for the construction of the $10 million Purnell Center and fund the Fifth-Year Scholars Program, which enables undergraduates to pursue an additional year of study at Carnegie Mellon without having to pay tuition. "They're rare donors indeed," says Cohon.
"We've been fortunate enough to be able to donate in significant ways," downplays Johnson, "and Carnegie is an institution that puts those donations to good use."
Cohon has already used the Johnsons' most recent contribution to finance several projects. He used the largest share of the $5 million to fund the Herbert A. Simon Professor of Economics and Psychology, which was awarded to George Loewenstein of the Social and Decision Sciences Department. Loewenstein (profiled in the June 2007 issue of Carnegie Mellon Today) is one the founders of the decision sciences field, which analyzes the neural and social aspects of decision making.
"To be able to award [Loewenstein] this chair was an extremely powerful, strategic move for us," says Cohon. Without such professorships, the university is vulnerable to renowned professors being wooed away by other prestigious universities with far larger endowments. "When the need arose, we didn't have to go scrambling to find a donor; we could just tap Tod and Cindy's pledge," says Cohon.
The allocation is especially gratifying to Johnson because he became friends with Herbert Simon, who won the 1978 Nobel Prize in Economics and was one of the most influential faculty members during his 51-year tenure at Carnegie Mellon. Loewenstein, meanwhile, now sits on Johnson's business advisory board at NPD.
Cohon has used another $750,000 from the Johnsons' gift to help fund the Center for Marketing Technology. Although housed in the Tepper School of Business, the center draws in faculty from all over the university to use the latest technology in marketing, including a project to determine how buyers behave. "It's very consistent with Tod's line of work," says Cohon.
There are a variety of less conspicuous projects around campus where Cohon is using a portion of the Johnsons' gift. And, yes, one of those projects involves refurbishing labs, which is just fine with the Johnsons.
Brittany McCandless (HS'08) lives in New York City, where she works for ABC News. She has been a regular contributor to this magazine since her junior year.
