UNC Breaks Fundraising Record; Annual Gifts Exceed $250 Million
Posted on July 26, 2007Carolina has set a new record for annual gifts, receiving $250.8 million in private gifts in fiscal 2007.
The new record means the University has set four consecutive years of such record-setting support, topping $239 million in 2006, $192.5 million in 2005 and $192 million in 2004. Gifts account for money that is immediately available to the University.
The campus also had 71,740 donors, its most ever and up 5 percent from the year before. Sixty-six percent of those donors, or 47,158 individuals, are UNC alumni.
“This is an historic year for Carolina,” said Paul Fulton ’57, a member of the University’s Board of Trustees and co-chair of the Carolina First Campaign Steering Committee. “We’re immensely grateful to our donors. They value what Carolina does for students and society and understand how important private gifts are to furthering our mission.”
Giving in 2007 put UNC over the top in the Carolina First Campaign, the private fundraising drive that began in July 1999 and will end Dec. 31. Carolina exceeded the campaign’s $2 billion goal on Feb. 21, 2007, and since has raised the drive’s total to $2.2 billion in commitments, which include pledges as well as gifts.
“It was a tremendous achievement to surpass our $2 billion goal more than 10 months ahead of schedule,” said Mike Overlock ’68, Carolina First co-chair. “It’s just as impressive that we continue to enjoy tremendous momentum for the campaign. There has been no letdown, and that attests to the remarkable dedication of our supporters.”
A $50 million commitment from Dennis and Joan Gillings to support UNC’s School of Public Health put Carolina First over the $2 billion goal. That marked the single largest commitment in University history. Dennis Gillings is the chairman and CEO of Quintiles Transnational Corp., a Research Triangle Park-based pharmaceutical services company. Joan Gillings has had careers in public health and commercial real estate.
Other 2007 highlights included a $21.3 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop effective, inexpensive drugs to treat late-stage African sleeping sickness and visceral leishmaniasis.
Commitments supporting students included a donation from High Point businessman Earl N. “Phil” Phillips Jr. ’62 to create study-abroad-in-Asia scholarships for up to 50 undergraduates annually in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences, as well as $4 million from the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust to create four scholarships for undergraduate music students each year in the college.
And, in a move to help more high school students realize their ambition to attend college, Carolina was one of 10 higher education institutions joining the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation in a $10 million partnership to create advising programs to help low-income students enroll in college. The network of programs created through the partnership will be based at UNC, which will receive $1 million over four years to create the Carolina College Advising Corps. This effort will place recent Carolina graduates as college advisers in 18 partner high schools across the state.
Along with creating music scholarships, the Kenan Trust gave $4 million to support a new College of Arts and Sciences music building now under construction on Columbia Street between Hanes Art Building and Abernethy Hall. Commitments to building projects also included $5 million to the college from alumnus Max Carrol Chapman Jr. ’66, a Wall Street businessman, to help fund a new building in the Carolina Physical Science Complex.
Commitments in 2007 helped the University create 18 endowed professorships as well as 114 undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships. That raised Carolina First’s totals for these priorities to 199 and 717, respectively.
Overall in the campaign, Carolina alumni have given $781.3 million, while corporations and foundations have provided almost $839 million. The balance has come from friends of the University and other organizations.
“Our support comes from every corner,” said Charlie Shaffer ’64, campaign co-chair. “And the impact of that support can be seen wherever you look on this campus, as well as across the state and around the world.”
Related coverage is available online:
- Carolina First Reaches $2 Billion On Landmark Public Health Gift
News report from February 2007 - Carolina First Fundraising Goal Raised to $2 Billion
News report from October 2005 - UNC Breaks Fundraising Record
News report from July 2004
