SFU and New Revenue Streams
May 19, 2025
I wanted to talk about one item in Dilson Rassier’s May 15, 2025, email to the community (“Navigating SFU’s Financial Challenges Together”). Dr. Rassier’s email, of course, outlines the financial complexities thrust upon the postsecondary sector, including the federal government’s caps on international student permits and what SFU is attempting to do about these seemingly enduring problems. Among the proposed solutions, he noted:
Work is underway to build alternate sources of revenue generation, such as increasing non-credit professional development offerings, increasing international presence, leveraging property assets and other strategic initiatives. The positive impacts of these initiatives will be realized in the coming years. In the meantime, it is important to know that continued fiscal restraint will be needed.
There is, of course, a lot to unpack here — for example, “leveraging property assets”, a phrase that is obviously begging for further details, given that SFU has been a wealthy property developer for years now and could, perhaps, have leveraged such assets last fiscal year, during a time of mass layoffs. Without more information, it’s hard to understand the dynamics of SFU’s property holdings and development on its finances.
Last fall, President Joy Johnson stated to the APSA executive of the day that SFU would need to identify new sources of revenue. Following conversations with APSA members like you, I wrote to President Johnson this spring that while SFU needs to identify new sources of revenue, it would be wise to protect the sources of revenue it already has.
I outlined one critical example: SFU Advancement.
For those who are unfamiliar with this department, it is SFU’s fundraising unit. Prior to my professional role with APSA, I worked for seventeen years in Advancement and was well aware of the vital role it plays (and has played) in securing private and public donations to SFU. Think everything from student bursaries and scholarships to capital projects, such as the new Marianne and Edward Gibson Art Museum (the new building in the former Strand Hall parking lot), funds for which Advancement was instrumental in securing.
As I noted to President Johnson, “When I worked in Advancement, I recall that the ROI was approximately 1:8. Every dollar spent on Advancement yielded approximately eight dollars in donations. That ratio may have changed over the years, but I presume that the ROI is still very high….” While those dollars are very often designated for particular funds and projects, per agreements with donors, Advancement still routinely brings in tens of millions of dollars annually.
Given SFU Advancement’s pivotal role revenue-wise, I further wrote to the administration that, “. . . I'm having a hard time understanding why the University continues to cut Advancement's budget, which results in the unfortunate need to position-eliminate more of its personnel. While SFU may be searching for new revenue streams, it seems important to protect the ones that we have. An important unit like Advancement simply can't shrink to greatness.”
The issue in Advancement isn’t only cuts to personnel, but also being unable to fill much-needed positions during the hiring freeze. While the University has prioritized the filling of frontline fundraising positions in Advancement, some of the critical positions that allow fundraisers to work at full capacity are apparently going unfilled. If you’d like a metaphor to capture this dynamic, picture an airplane pilot having little or no maintenance crew.
Of course, University Advancement is just one example of the revenue streams that I believe SFU should protect and prioritize to endure these years of financial hardship. There are others: Work Integrated Learning is another example. This unit does significant and vital work on SFU’s Co-operative Education program — which is a flagship attracter for domestic students to SFU — but in recent years has faced massive cuts and now suffers a greatly diminished workforce.
There are other examples, and I don’t mean to leave any of your departments or units out of my article. I’d be happy to hear from you and learn of other SFU revenue streams in need of shelter during the fiscal storms, and champion these where I can.