Barbara Breier Receives National Honor For Development Foundation Leadership

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Dr. Barbara Breier, vice president for University Advancement at Texas State University and executive director of the Texas State University Development Foundation, received a 2019 CASE Commonfund Institutionally Related Foundation Award in recognition of her work to build a strong culture of philanthropy at Texas State while instilling a commitment to enhancing diversity on the development board.

The Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) is the global association for professionals in the university advancement areas of alumni relations, communications, development, marketing and advancement services.

Breier received the honor during 2019 CASE Annual Conference for Institutionally Related Foundations, April 3-5, in San Diego.

Institutionally related foundations are nonprofit organizations that cultivate and manage private assets to support the missions of the colleges and universities with which they are affiliated.

This prestigious award recognizes professionals who have made extraordinary contributions to the advancement, quality and effectiveness of their foundations. The award is underwritten by Commonfund, which provides fund management services and investment advice to nonprofit organizations.

Dr. Breier, who has more than 30 years of experience in higher education advancement, became vice president for University Advancement and executive director of the Texas State University Development Foundation in 2011.

Highlights of her accomplishments at Texas State include her leadership in closing the institution’s Pride in Action campaign which raised $152 million, exceeding the goal by $42 million; establishing an endowment compliance program which has significantly increased utilization of available endowment funds from 64 percent in fiscal year 2013 to 95 percent in fiscal year 2017, and developing the foundation’s first strategic plan to help drive and fund the university’s next campaign.

Through these efforts and others, Dr. Breier has helped grow the university endowment fund from $124 million in fiscal year 2012 to $205 million in fiscal year 2018.

In his letter of support, former Texas State University Development Foundation Board Chair James S. Taylor wrote, “Dr. Breier’s creativity, strategic mindset and organizational knowledge and skills have all been instrumental in helping Texas State University achieve the kind of transformative change necessary to become a national research university.”

Taylor also wrote that Dr. Breier “worked to create a development board that better reflects the diversity of the Texas State community.” Under her leadership, an intentional shift was made to increase representation beyond central Texas and to reflect the demographic shift in the Texas State alumni population. From 2012 to 2016, the average age of the development board was reduced from 60 to 50 years and ethnic representation increased from 7 percent to 27 percent.

Before joining Texas State, Dr. Breier served in senior leadership roles including Senior vice president of development and marketing at the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, nine years as the executive director of development for the University of Texas System and several years at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.

Before beginning her development career, she was an assistant professor of education at William Jewell College, the coordinator of field experiences for the teacher education program at the University of Kansas and the director of planning at Cameron University.