Outlining the first concrete plan for a more financially collaborative University, President Neil L. Rudenstine said yesterday that Harvard's 10 faculties will cooperate in the upcoming multi-billion dollar fund drive to build a "safety net" for the poorer graduate schools.

The unprecedented safety net would be a central pool of millions of dollars. Harvard would dole out funds from this pool to areas of dire need throughout the University, Rudenstine said.

Of the near-$2 billion Harvard seeks to raise in the five-year capital campaign, Rudenstine wants to earmark roughly 10 percent for this safety net, he said--though he emphasized that no goals have yet been set.

"It's a gamble," he said. "I don't know whether we'll succeed. We're going to go out and try to do it. It hasn't been done before."

He said the graduate schools' interest in making such an effort "is real." He also said that every graduate school, including the Business School, Law School and Medical School, will actively cooperate in the University-wide campaign, expected to begin next year.

Rudenstine's comments came in response to a Crimson article stating that the Business School--one of Harvard's wealthiest schools--would not raise money for other parts of the University.

Harvard officials have repeatedly touted the upcoming campaign as the first University-wide fund drive. But a Business School spokesperson told The Crimson last week that the school will not make a push to raise money for other schools; it will merely count its usual gifts toward the campaign. One Business School fundraising official said at the time, "We're not part of it."

The Law School is in the middle of its own independent capital campaign, and the Medical School recently finished one, thus limiting how much money these schools can raise for otherparts of the University.

Rudenstine said, however, that all threeschools will be actively involved in the funddrive, though fundraising officials in theindividual schools may not be fully aware of that.

The president said he and the graduate schooldeans are at too early a point in the planningprocess to have worked out exactly how they willcooperate.

"We very deliberately agreed in the beginningthat we would do this together," Rudenstine said.He said each of the schools will help raise moneytoward planned interfaculty programs, where theinterests of several schools intersect. Everyschool will also help identify big donors who areinterested in the University as a whole, he said.

Rudenstine acknowledged, though, that everyschool's first priority will--and must--be tosatisfy its own fundraising needs.

"[Business School fundraisers] have got to puttheir main effort into their annual fund," hesaid.

This means that while the deans and thepresident will solicit gifts for the wholeUniversity, the graduate schools' rank-and-filefundraising personnel--the class officers, theexperienced development officials--will remaindedicated solely to their own school's financialsecurity.

The president maintained that even without thehelp of these fundraising officials, he and thedeans still feel they can raise a significant sumfor the University.

"It will be a substantial amount of money, Ipromise you," Rudenstine said. "It will be anontrivial part of the campaign, and it will be anambitious run, no question about it."

Ira E. Stoll contributed to the reporting ofthis story.