UI Foundation marks second-best fundraising year

IOWA CITY - A record number of contributors gave the second-highest fundraising total to the University of Iowa and the UI Foundation in Fiscal Year 2011, numbers that have UI officials encouraged about their aggressive fundraising goals for the future.

Gifts and commitments made to the UI Foundation and the UI by private donors totaled $213.9 million for the fiscal year that ended June 30. That's an increase of 12.2 percent over the total raised last fiscal year, and second only to the total raised in 2005, when $227 million was raised in the final year of a $1 billion fundraising campaign, officials said.

“We are quite pleased,” UI Foundation President Lynette Marshall said. “Certainly, I think the recovery of the economy has something to do with it.”

The UI also is in a quiet phase of a new fundraising campaign, talking to some of the university's most generous donors, something that likely contributed to the total, Marshall said.

UI Foundation staff also are working to connect with more potential donors who aren't UI graduates, Marshall said, such as patients or family members of patients from UI Hospitals and Clinics or Hawkeye fans who want to contribute to athletics. Of the fiscal 2011 giving total, 34 percent of the money came from alumni, while non-alumni provided 23 percent and 43 percent came from corporations, foundations and other organizations.

“That's obviously also desirable, to reach beyond our traditional clientele,” Marshall said.

A record number of contributors - 74,591 - made gifts to the UI Foundation in support of the UI in 2010-11. The 123,487 gifts those donors made was the second-highest number of gifts in a year.

The goal is to see 5 percent to 8 percent growth in the fundraising total annually, Marshall said.

“That's a pretty aggressive goal on our part,” she said. “We've just been working hard to connect with people who want to support the university.”

Donors in 2010-11 made gift commitments that will create 70 new student scholarships, support 12 faculty positions and create 23 new research funds and 71 new program funds, UI officials said.

“The evidence of the impact of philanthropy is all around us in buildings; in our faculty, students and staff; and in a multitude of programs,” UI President Sally Mason said in a statement. “If we look at facilities alone, gifts from individuals and organizations in the past year are helping to transform our university and provide exciting and innovative environments for learning and discovery.”