Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has raised over $2 billion so far in its ... [+]
Carnegie Mellon University announced this week that it had surpassed its initial fundraising goal of $2 billion in its current capital campaign. With $2.13 billion raised so far, about 18 months ahead of the original schedule, the university indicated it would extend its Make Possible: The Campaign for Carnegie Mellon University until June 30, 2025.
The new end date would coincide with the anticipated 125th anniversary celebration of the founding of the university’s original institution — the Carnegie Technical Schools — by Andrew Carnegie.
According to the university, campaign gifts have been received from more than 61,000 donors, including alumni, parents, friends, faculty and staff, corporate partners and foundations, and students.
Included in the gifts so far are donations establishing more than 50 new endowed professorships, three headships and four deanships. More than $400 million has been raised for student support, including 374 new endowed scholarship and fellowship fundss and support programs such as the Tartan Scholars and the CMU Rales Fellows Program. Among the student support gifts was a record $50 million commitment for scholarships from alumni Tod and Cindy Johnson.
The campaign has also featured donations for several capital projects involving new construction and major renovations of academic facilities and research centers as well as the construction of the Highmark Center for Health, Wellness and Athletics.
As part of the campaign, the university previously announced its largest gift ever, a $275 million investment from the Mastercard Foundation, which was used to endow Carnegie Mellon University in Africa, increase fellowship support for the students who study there, and enhance the university’s contributions to education, research, and innovation in Africa.
“Carnegie Mellon was founded by an extraordinary act of philanthropy, and that spirit of giving is only stronger today as evidenced by supporters of our Make Possible campaign,” said President Farnam Jahanian, in the university’s press release. “While $2.13 billion — and counting — is a remarkable measure of the exceptional generosity of our community of supporters, even more important are the opportunities those gifts create for our research and education mission.”
Carnegie Mellon’s successful campaign is the latest example of an American college or university concluding a multi billion dollar plus fundraising effort, and it occurs during a period where higher education is enjoying record private giving.
Philanthropic gifts to American colleges and universities totaled $59.5 billion in Fiscal Year 2022, according to the latest annual report from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education’s (CASE) Voluntary Support of Education (VSE) survey. That survey is generally considered to be the definitive source about philanthropic support for private, nonprofit and public higher education in the United States. The FY 2022 level was a 12.5% increase over the prior year, a gain of about $6.6 billion.
