By Peggy McInerny, Director of Communications

"We are in the middle of a generational shift in how public education operates in this country and I think philanthropy is going to play a bigger role. Donors will have to get involved a little earlier and stay a little bit longer,” said Howie Fitzgerald.

UCLA International Institute, November 14, 2025 — Howie Fitzgerald, who joined the International Institute as executive director for development in mid-August 2025, never anticipated a career in educational fundraising.

“I don’t think anyone really plans for a career in development, or very few people do. It’s something that usually happens to you, and you either respond to it, or you don’t,” he said.

In Fitzgerald’s case, it has proven an excellent choice for his skill set: he understands universities, supports their educational mission, knows the ins and out of building fundraising support systems and has a talent for relating to donors.

“In development, we positively impact the lives of students. That’s what keeps me in the field and why I love it,” he commented.

A native of Pennsylvania who grew up near Pittsburgh, Fitzgerald moved to California to pursue a Ph.D. in philosophy at Claremont Graduate University. After realizing an academic career was not for him, he worked briefly at a consulting firm and went on to build career in development at institutions of higher learning.

Fitzgerald first spent several years at Occidental College, where he acquired in-depth experience in all aspects of running an annual fund: an annual campaign to raise small gifts from large numbers of alumni, which lays the foundation for larger gifts later in life.

A former colleague recruited Fitzgerald to join California State University Long Beach (CSULB) in 2009 to lead the development office of the College of Liberal Arts. Not only did the college encompass all the departments that Fitzgerald had been fundraising for at Occidental, CSULB was five minutes from his house!

“That’s where I really made my career,” he reflected. “The College of Liberal Arts is comprised of about 40 different departments, programs, centers and other entities. I was there for almost 16 years and got to see the university really grow from a development perspective. We created a pure philanthropic foundation, completed two comprehensive capital campaigns and had a lot of success.”

Among those successes were gifts that built several research centers, endowed many chairs in the liberal arts and one — a $20 million cumulative cash donation — that established a center of translation studies and a state-of-the-art translation laboratory.

The new center began with offering a certificate in translation studies, then built an undergraduate degree program and then a master’s degree program. After CSULB received the right to create new doctorates, Fitzgerald's development team pushed internally to have translation and interpretation be the first doctorate offered. If that program becomes a reality, the original donor has committed an additional $10 million to support it.

“I’m so grateful to Cal State Long Beach because it gave me the ability to be there for my son’s childhood — you can’t put a price tag on that,” he said.

UCLA and the changing nature of university funding

Before joining UCLA, Fitzgerald spent nearly a year as director of development at UC Irvine’s School of Social Ecology. When he received an unexpected call earlier this year from a UCLA development recruiter, everything clicked.

“The UCLA International Institute is just a really good fit for who I am and the way I think about the world. And it’s a great fit for the kind of ambition and vision that I see for the institute going forward.

“UCLA is an important place, not only in public education, but really, it’s a market leader. It matters for universities across the board. It’s a big prestigious public university and its international brand has few peers,” he said.

Fitzgerald anticipates a new era of university funding. “I think we are at the crosshairs of a lot of things in this country that will have important consequences. Knowing what I know about development, there are a lot of really sophisticated, interesting and talented people already thinking about how to get things done.

“I want to be part of that in some small way. We are in the middle of a generational shift in how public education operates in this country and I think philanthropy is going to play a bigger role. Donors will have to get involved a little earlier and stay a little bit longer,” he reflected.

“The role of development is to try to match a donor’s vision, but also understand what the university can achieve with that mission,” he said. When developing a program endowment, for example, “We spend a lot of time talking about a budget and what it can support, because you need to have realistic expectations on both sides.

“Philanthropy can be a huge solution to temporary static and can solve a lot of problems. If you get the right gift, you don’t need to make a decision based on state or federal funding,” he noted.

Fitzgerald’s current thinking about the International Institute centers on faculty support and a long-term vision of what the institution will look like in 100 years. His immediate goal is to build the systems to support an annual giving campaign (annual fund).

“An annual fund is an immense amount of work, but those smaller gifts are the beginning of that process. We’ve got some system building to do, but if you build the right system, it doesn’t matter who is running it — it produces results.” He points out that the system he built at CSULB eventually generated annual seven-figure gifts.

The seasoned fundraiser emphasized the strength of the UCLA development operation. “The strong affinity that Bruin alumni have with UCLA doesn’t come out of nowhere,” he said. “It comes from external affairs and alumni affairs doing a good job of keeping in touch with people, starting when they are students. If you get really good, you’re talking to multiple generations of donors who support endowments. So, the kids get involved, then the grandkids get involved.”

Fitzgerald sees many development opportunities in the current tumultuous environment of higher education and is excited to make a difference at the International Institute. “Pessimistic people do not survive in development,” he concluded. “We occupy the space of optimism.”

Published: Friday, November 14, 2025