Never Daunted Campaign

In the Key of ‘Never Daunted’

What IU’s Engagement and Fundraising Campaign Means for the Jacobs School of Music

By Raymond Fleischmann

This summer, Indiana University and the IU Foundation publicly launched the Never Daunted Campaign, the most ambitious campaign in university history. Through deepened engagement with alumni and friends and the creation of new, meaningful ways for donors to make a lasting impact on students, this university-wide effort focuses on three priorities: student success; discovery and innovation; and strengthening communities.

And those aren’t just abstractions. At the Jacobs School of Music, the Never Daunted Campaign will have a measurable, substantial impact on our students and faculty, bolstering an institution that’s already among the world’s best music and performing arts schools.

“Here at Jacobs, we’re immensely proud to offer world-class training for our students, exemplary support for our faculty, and more than a thousand concerts and performances each year that enrich our students’ lives and the performing arts in general,” said Abra K. Bush, David Henry Jacobs Bicentennial Dean of the Jacobs School. “Through the generosity and vision of Jacobs’ donors and friends, the Never Daunted Campaign will amplify our school’s excellence in so many ways, and thanks to the campaign’s Scholarship Impact Accelerator, donors can make an impact faster than ever before.”

The Scholarship Impact Accelerator is a unique feature of the campaign, and it’s designed to give donors a fast, direct way to close the gap of unmet need for students at IU. Under normal circumstances, if a donor gives a school like Jacobs a pledged, multi-year monetary gift to create an endowed student scholarship or fellowship, that new student award isn’t actually disbursed until the gift is received in full. With the Scholarship Impact Accelerator, however, donors’ pledged gifts will go to work right away, allowing qualified scholarships and fellowships to be awarded when the pledge is first received.

“Jacobs’ donors truly care about the futures of our students and school, and understandably they want to see their generosity making a difference immediately,” said Allison Hightower, the Jacobs School’s Executive Director of Development. “The Scholarship Impact Accelerator helps them make their impact go further and faster. It lets them witness firsthand all the ways in which their support is opening doors for talented performers, educators, and scholars.”

The Scholarship Impact Accelerator is just one example of how the Never Daunted Campaign is designed to create immediate, tangible results. The campaign’s impact will extend well beyond financial aid, ensuring the Jacobs School’s continued leadership in music and performing arts education.

With the campaign already underway — and a major new graduate fellowship in musicology already announced — here’s what the Never Daunted Campaign means for Jacobs.

Student success

For music and performing arts students, the difference between finishing a degree and thriving in one often comes down to resources outside of a curriculum: a scholarship or fellowship that alleviates their financial burden and allows them to focus exclusively on their studies and training; a summer festival that requires travel funding; a new, professional-grade instrument that allows them to bring undiscovered tones and color to their music.

With the help of Jacobs’ alumni and donors, this is exactly the kind of expanded support that the Never Daunted Campaign will bring to our school. The campaign’s Scholarship Impact Accelerator is already inspiring donors, in fact, and it’s creating new instances of student support. Just this month, renowned Jacobs professor J. Peter Burkholder and his husband Doug McKinney created a new graduate fellowship in musicology, and their gift offers a prime example of the Accelerator’s impact and appeal.

“The Scholarship Impact Accelerator is a terrific program, starting the fellowship next year while we gradually build up the endowment over five years and effectively adding 18 percent to our gift,” said Burkholder, a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Music in the Jacobs School’s Department of Musicology. “It lets us have a big effect while making contributions in a way we can afford. We will get to meet the recipients and hear about their experiences and accomplishments as they go through the program. What makes me happiest in life is being useful, and this feels like a very useful thing to do.”

[The Scholarship Impact Accelerator] lets us have a big effect while making contributions in a way we can afford.
J. Peter Burkholder, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Music

Discovery and innovation

At Jacobs, discovery and innovation take many forms: new commissions, new performances, new scholarly research, and new opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaboration.

“With so many performances and concerts each year, the Jacobs School has so much opportunity for groundbreaking artistry,” said Bush. “In the past, we’ve staged premieres of new orchestral work, ballet productions, and opera — The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay had its world-premiere here at Jacobs before premiering at the Metropolitan Opera — and I’m certain that the generosity of our donors through this campaign will result in even more innovative work in the future.”

A dedication to discovery and innovation shows up structurally, as well. This past July, the Jacobs School announced its merger with the Department of Theatre, Drama, and Contemporary Dance — a department previously housed in the IU College of Arts and Sciences — creating what is now one of the largest, most comprehensive public schools of music, theatre, and dance in the country.

It’s a merger that doesn’t just expand the number of degrees that Jacobs offers; it opens up new artistic opportunities, as well, giving donors an even wider range of artistic and scholarly work to support. And within the context of the Never Daunted Campaign, it’s a merger that demonstrates how committed the Jacobs School is to building something new as well as sustaining the level of excellence that already exists at our institution.

Strengthening communities

What does “Strengthening communities” look like at the Jacobs School of Music? Well, it looks like you.

For Jacobs, the Never Daunted Campaign’s third priority means forging and sustaining relationships with the alumni, donors, and friends who carry this school’s impact into concert halls, recording studios, theaters, and classrooms all over the world. Whether you're a recent graduate or a Jacobs alum from decades past, staying connected with the school — through volunteerism, attending a concert, or simply keeping in touch — is what this priority is all about.

“From its very inception, the Never Daunted Campaign has been designed to focus on more than just a number,” Hightower said. “Alumni engagement and connectedness is a huge part of the campaign, and with alumni like ours — talented musicians and performers who live all over the world — there are so many opportunities for connection and reconnection with Jacobs and each other.”

New alumni events, communications, and special performances are already in development, creating more ways than ever for Jacobs graduates to reconnect with their alma mater. As the Never Daunted Campaign moves forward, those connections will be just as important as the philanthropic support that underpins the school’s mission and worldwide community.

After all, strengthening communities starts with the people who make them. And for Jacobs, that means you.

Visit the Never Daunted Campaign's website

About the author

Raymond Fleischmann is Director of Engagement for the Jacobs School of Music, where his work focuses on engaging Jacobs’ alumni and donors through communications, events, and new projects. He holds a B.A. in English and the Individualized Major Program from Indiana University, and an M.F.A. in creative writing from Ohio State University. His first novel, How Quickly She Disappears, was published by Penguin Random House in 2020, and his short fiction has been published in The Iowa Review, Cimarron Review, The Pinch, and many others. Reach him at rfleisch@iu.edu.