University of Iowa half way to massive $3B fundraising goal

IOWA CITY — The University of Iowa this week officially exited the “silent“ portion of a new fundraising campaign, aiming to generate more than $3 billion, by announcing that it already is halfway to that goal — which, if achieved, would top its last capital campaign record by more than $1 billion.

Among the goals of the just-announced “Together Hawkeyes” campaign is to involve more than 300,000 UI alumni and friends; create more than 3 million “points of connection” for engagement with the university; and raise $3 billion in private support by Dec. 31, 2027.

The university began the silent portion of its new campaign on July 1, 2019 — about two years after it wrapped its last “For Iowa. Forever More” philanthropic campaign, which raised nearly $2 billion. That campaign, which wrapped in February 2017, broke its $1.7 billion goal with gifts from 272,000 people from all 50 states and 76 countries.

Among the gifts included in the $1.6 billion already raised toward the new campaign is Sue Beckwith’s $7 million gift announced in 2021 to endow the UI women’s basketball head coaching position.

This new campaign’s to-date tally also includes the largest gift in UI history — a $70 million donation from the Richard O. Jacobson Foundation, announced in February 2022, to help build a new inpatient tower on the UI Health Care campus.

And it includes a $15 million commitment from the Scanlan Family Foundation to create the Scanlan Center for School Mental Health in the UI College of Education — a gift, announced last year, that came with a $20 million state match.

As part of this week’s campaign announcement, the UI Center for Advancement shared news that Patricia Tippie — wife of Henry Tippie, namesake of the UI Henry B. Tippie College of Business — made a $20 million bequest to benefit both the business college and Hawkeye Athletics.

And it announced a $37.5 million commitment from alumnus Jerre Stead and his wife Mary Joy Stead to establish a “Stead Family Scholars Program in the UI Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine.”

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It was that couple’s $25 million commitment to children’s medicine at the university in 2015 that earned them recognition in the naming of the UI Stead Family Children’s Hospital.

Stead will be on the UI campus this week encouraging students, alumni, and “fans” to give.

“He will challenge UI students and Hawkeye fans to give back to the children’s hospital,” according to UI officials, “either through dollar donations or words of encouragement to patients — in advance of and at the football game against Minnesota on Saturday,” when the capital campaign will be announced by broadcast in Kinnick Stadium.

Stead, while on campus, also will announce his own new business endeavor — Stead Impact Ventures — a venture capital firm committed to “impact investing and building on the work of the Stead Foundation,” which has given more than $400 million to the university and other health care, education, and faith-based organizations and causes.

“We know that Hawkeyes are stronger together, and we encourage alumni and friends to connect with and offer assistance to our students and faculty in whatever way they are able, be it through volunteering, attending events, offering internships, or making a gift,” UI President Barbara Wilson said.

In announcing its campaign, the university said it is “one of the first in the Big Ten to publicly announce and track engagement goals” — sharing that ahead of the announcement more than 251,000 individuals made more than 1.5 million “points of engagement” via “social media posts, volunteering, joining Iowa clubs, and attending events.”

Donors who contribute to the campaign will advance three specific UI priorities:

Within the context of current higher education headwinds facing campuses nationally — including a demographic drop in high school graduates; an increase in low-income, minority, and first-generation students; and weakening state support — Wilson suggested philanthropy is becoming increasingly important.

“Our people are at the heart of this campaign,” she said. “We want students, faculty, and staff to have the proper resources to succeed. And because more than one in five of our undergraduate students are the first in their families to attend college, I am passionate about providing additional support for first-generation Hawkeyes as they acclimate to campus life.”

Highlighting the importance of every gift, the university shared that more than 13,000 donors from around the world to date have given a total of $241 million for scholarships. And nearly 2,000 donors have pledged a total of $197 million to support “scholarly endeavors.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com