New magic number: 50,000 alumni donors

From M, fall 2005

The University crossed a magical number with the end of its fiscal year in June: more than 50,000 alumni donors in a single year.

The 50,000 target has been a University goal for several years, but it required annual growth of about 10 percent in recent years, at a time when other major universities were growing alumni giving by only 3 to 5 percent annually.

The U's heady growth was made possible by intensive efforts to reach alumni via mail, phone, publications, and the Internet with the message of giving back to the University and by outlining the impact that their gifts have had.

Those efforts brought gifts to the University from a record 51,145 alumni, many of them making their first gift to the U. Together they gave nearly $56 million in fiscal 2005, or 31 percent of the $180 million raised from all sources.

Scholarship month

With $82 million in gifts and 1,000 new scholarships already tallied, the Promise of Tomorrow Scholarship Drive is off to a strong start. But we're only halfway to our goal. To sustain the drive's momentum and build further awareness of the need for student support, President Bruininks has again declared October Scholarship Month. Look and listen for scholarship information in publications, on billboards, and over the airwaves all month long.