Historic Inspiring Futures campaign surpasses goal
The best fundraising campaigns are the ones that continue to give, said Chris Lucier, senior director of advancement at the University of Idaho.
He said, for example, if a university is pulling in $15 million a year before a campaign, fundraising efforts to double donations won’t make $30 million a one-time number — it’s likely that goal would become the university’s new standard.
Lucier said he believes this will prove to be the case for the Inspiring Futures campaign, a 7 1/2 year effort to raise $225 million, more than any fundraiser in state history. The campaign officially ended Dec. 31, and Lucier said it raised upwards of $261 million.
“These campaigns are such a long-term view, and we continue to raise additional scholarships, new legacies and new standards,” Lucier said. “Students have been seeing the impacts, as it goes along with scholarship programs and buildings that were a result of the campaign.”
According to a university report, approximately 35 percent of the funds raised will go to student support, 26 percent to faculty support, 26 percent to programs and 13 percent to facilities.
Lucier said while many donors pledged funds to projects, such as the Integrated Research Innovations Center building and Kibbie Dome renovations, for the most part the campaign was student-oriented. Many students already benefited from the funds donated to the campaign, Lucier said.
“There are kids who are graduated and left Moscow right now who were on a scholarship that was raised during the course of the campaign,” he said. “If the donor gave in 2007, that scholarship was awarded the next academic year. I’m sure there’s many stories of students who have graduated who got their education as a direct result of the campaign.”
Lucier said it won’t be clear until later this week what percentage of the funds were discretionary, as a majority of the 45,000 donors pledged scholarship money to a specific department. Lucier said the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, the College of Engineering and College of Business received a bulk of the funds, but donations were spread across the board.
“That’s the most exciting part — being able to help our students and putting it towards resources and research,” said Craig Chatriand, UI dean of students. “That’s critical of being a land-grant research university, and contributions are really critical.”
Alumni and friends celebrated the conclusion of the campaign Saturday in Boise with a reception. In Moscow, Lucier and the rest of his department is still in business and will continue to organize loose ends and compile final reports.
Lucier said the university will use the transitional period to take a breather, but in a few years, there’s no doubt another campaign would be launched. He’s confident UI can top its own record.
“Now that we’ve cleared out of campaigning, we’ll have the next couple months to focus on other types of questions,” Lucier said. “The transition is really a marketing effort to galvanize the community — you give yourself a few years to start to build it, and then you do it again.”
Hannah Shirley can be reached at [email protected]