Fundraising sets records in 2000-01

By Jan Gleason

Thanks to the generosity of its supporters, Emory received 31,854 gifts totaling $297.8 million in contributions between Sept. 1, 2000, and Aug. 31 of this year. This amounts to 3,502 more gifts and some $205 million more than last year.

Based on last year’s numbers, the nearly $300 million total should certainly put Emory among the top 10 university fundraising efforts in the country when figures are released later this fall. “As Emory reaches for its position among the very top echelon of the world's great research universities, the need for the financial resources to support its aspirations becomes ever clearer and greater,” said Board of Trustees Chair Ben Johnson. “It's heartening to see the community of support for the University and its highest aspirations grow and broaden so dramatically.”

“I take great pride in this increase in the number of gifts, especially in this time of economic turmoil,” said Bill Fox, senior vice president of Institu-tional Advancement (IA). “It indicates a strong belief in what Emory is doing. People like to participate in excellence and see their money well-spent and well-used. We have a good record of using money as we said we would.”

Fox should know—during the past five years Emory has received more than $1 billion in gifts, and in the 10 years he has been at the IA helm, the University has received over $1.5 billion in gifts and pledges. That figure places him among the elite of the higher education fundraising chiefs whose efforts have resulted in more than a $1 billion for their institutions.

“This is a moment in our history as a University when we should all thank Bill Fox and his many hard-working and loyal colleagues who have done such a fine job in recruiting support for our mission of superb teaching and research,” said President Bill Chace.

Fox himself is quick to point out it’s certainly not all his doing. “At no time in Emory’s history have as many deans, faculty and senior administrators been as fervently involved in fundraising as they are today, and that is making a great difference in our efforts,” he said. “IA coordinates the fundraising process, but no one can tell the story of their school better than the deans. And we have a superb fundraising staff.

“This is the second-best fundraising year in our history,” Fox added. “The total for this year has only been exceeded once, and that was in 1997.”

Fox said the $297.8 million represents actual dollars received by the University during the fiscal year and does not include pledges and planned gifts that will come to Emory over time. Included in this year’s amount are gifts from the Whitehead Foundation, the Evans Foundation and the Woodruff Foundation. “Emory continues to benefit from the generosity of Robert Woodruff and the foundations he and his family members established,” Fox said.

Among those making gifts were 28,230 individuals, up 12 percent from last year.

“The range and level of gifts show that it took many people to make this banner year possible,” said Fox. Of these donations, 19,781 came through the Annual Fund solicitation of alumni, parents and friends. At $3.4 million, a record year, the Annual Fund is a small percentage of the overall contributions, but those gifts are unrestricted to the budget and given primarily by alumni.

Some notable gifts during the year include:

• Andrew J. McKelvey made a $2 million initial gift on a $20 million pledge to support lung disease research and transplant and to establish a chair in lung transplantation.

• The Marcus Foundation gave $2,833,334 on a $4.5 million pledge to create a research fund for vascular diseases and to establish an endowed faculty chair in vascular medicine.

• Jane Fonda gave $2 million to establish The Jane Fonda Center at Emory University to advance knowledge and training for healthy infancy, childhood and adolescence.

• The Avon Products Foundation gave $5.3 million for breast cancer research.

• The Alaska AIDS Vaccine Ride, organized by Pallotta Team-Works, generated $1,172,395 for Emory to support research toward the development of an AIDS vaccine.

• The Carlos and Marguerite Mason Trust gave $500,000 on a $1.5 million pledge to support transplant tolerance research.

• The Wallace H. Coulter Foundation gave $4.4 million toward a $7 million pledge to name the department of biomedical engineering.

• Approximately 60 nursing alumni gave $200,000 to name the Alumni Auditorium in the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing.

• A gift from Jack and Lynn Stahl for the Marian K. Heilbrun Music and Media Library, named in honor of Mrs. Stahl’s mother.

• The Ford Foundation made a $707,000 pledge to establish a fellowship program in Islam and human rights at the law school.

• An anonymous donor gave $650,000 to fund a fully endowed MBA scholarship for Latino/Hispanic students.

• Ida Boers, a former staff member of the Pitts Theology Library, provided a gift of $1,000 to help make the art of 100 16th century European woodcuts available to Internet users through a project of the Kessler Reformation Collection at Pitts that involves digitizing woodcuts by artists like Cranach.

• The John H. and Wilhelmina D. Harland Foundation provided a $120,000 grant over three years to the Health Care Ethics group at the Center for Ethics for the project, “Improving the Care of Children at the End of Life.” These funds allowed the Center for Ethics to partially fund a pediatric ethics fellow to do research in this area, and to initiate a statewide pediatric end-of-life care working group for health care workers in the state of Georgia.

• $2,283,000 for the Donna and Marvin Schwartz Center for Performing Arts, from alumni, parents and friends, corporations and foundations.

The drive to complete the funding for the performing arts center has attracted more first-time gifts (as well as more record-breaking gifts) than any previous campaign. Not counted in that figure is a notable future commitment: a $750,000 challenge grant Emory recently won from the Kresge Foundation, contingent upon the University raising the remaining $2.8 million for the center by the start of 2003.