CAMPAIGN UPDATE
Campaign comes to a successful close
The six-year Campaign for the University of Vermont came to an official close on June 30, 2007, some five months after exceeding its $250 million goal.
When the counting was all completed, the official Campaign total was announced as $278,461,114, exceeding the goal by eleven percent and making UVM’s most ambitious fundraising campaign its most successful, as well. Of the total, approximately $76.1 million was raised for student scholarships, $146.6 million for faculty support, $22.7 million for facilities, $2.7 million for the University libraries, $4.7 million for athletics, $3.3 million for the Fleming Museum, $1.6 million for distinguished visiting scholars, and $20.6 million unrestricted as to its use.
President Daniel Mark Fogel expressed the University’s thanks to the “many heroes among our donors, faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends” who made the Campaign a success and provided the resources needed for “meeting the high expectations people now have of this rising university.”
More than 50,000 donors contributed over the course of the Campaign, with $97.3 million coming from undergraduate, graduate, and medical alumni, $21.8 million from current and past parents of UVM students, $24.6 million from friends of the University, $28.5 million from corporations, $83.9 million from foundations, and $22.2 million from other organizations. Approximately $154.8 million of the total was directed toward current operating funds, and $95.7 million was added to various endowment funds.
Photo by Mario Morgado
Record year for UVM Fund
Highest donor participation among New England publics
Fiscal year 2007 was a record-breaking year for the UVM Fund in more ways than one. Gifts to the University exceeded $9.5 million for the first time ever—soaring past the $6.6 million goal that was originally set for the year and exceeding by over $2 million the previous record of $7.3 million raised. And if those numbers aren’t extraordinary enough, the number of alumni, parents and friends contributing to the UVM Fund also increased to 24,860—the highest number in University history—giving UVM the sought-after distinction (and “bragging right”) of having the highest donor participation rate among public universities in New England.
“The UVM Fund really turned a corner in 2000 and 2001, when we began to see significant annual increases,” notes Alan Ryea, director of Alumni & Parent Programs, who oversees annual fund operations. “This upward trend is particularly significant because of what we’ve been through on a national and international level —9/11, the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Hurricane Katrina. These disasters diverted a lot of private support to relief organizations, but we seem not to have been affected by it—it’s been tremendous. In fact, overall the UVM Fund has contributed over $50 million to the Campaign.”
Jim Rosenberg ’64, chair of the UVM Fund Executive Committee, contextualized the numbers this way: “Our success shows that alumni, parents and friends of the University care about UVM and want UVM to be successful and flourish. Generosity from donors is a way to show appreciation of what we’ve done in the past, what we’re doing now, and what’s to come for the future.”
Annual fund support is a source of current operating dollars for UVM— money the University takes in and has available to spend that same fiscal year. Of highest priority is student aid—each year some $42 million of institutional funds is directed toward scholarships. The unrestricted portion of the annual fund, which topped $2.4 million in 2007, is of critical importance because it is money that may be directed to fund the University’s highest priorities.
Several factors have been instrumental in the recent success of the UVM Fund. “The phonathon program has dramatically increased the number of people with whom we can connect,” says Ryea. “Our parents are also giving at much higher rates. We raised $2.3 million from parents this year—the first time we’ve ever gone over $2 million with the parents program. We also have over four hundred volunteers who make fund-raising calls on behalf of UVM. These folks play such a key role.”L. Richard Fisher Estate Gift for Scholarships
Dick Fisher ’47, ’49 is a native Vermonter who's come a long way since graduating from high school in his hometown of Hardwick in 1941. But he’s not one to forget his roots. A skillful stock market investor over the years, he says he wanted to share his own good fortune by offering scholarship support for students from Hardwick and the Northeast Kingdom who need help in meeting their expenses at UVM.
The retired Silicon Valley sales executive earned two degrees from UVM—a bachelor of science in electrical engineering in 1947 and a bachelor of science in commerce and economics in 1949. He set up his scholarship with preference for those who want to study in the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, he says, because Vermont and the nation need people with those skills more than ever. “I’ve lived in Silicon Valley since 1972,” he says, “and throughout that period there has been a real shortage of engineering students coming out of our colleges and universities. If we don’t do a better job of attracting talented students into these fields, we’ll fall behind the rest of the world.”
Fisher started his fund in 1995 and built it to more than $1 million. That was his initial goal for the fund. But he’s since taken steps that will ensure the L. Richard Fisher Scholarship Fund will eventually grow by several fold with an estate gift that will bring the total to an estimated $4-5 million, continuing to provide increasing student support year after year.
“With the cost of education what it is today, practically everybody needs some financial help,” Fisher says. “I’m glad I can offer it.”
Since 2001, twenty-one UVM students have received some $240,000 in financial aid from the L. Richard Fisher Scholarship Fund.
(for UVM staff)