Tom Cogill

Good-bye, dusty archives. Hello, cyberspace. For the "Valley of the Shadow" Project at the Virginia Center for Digital History, undergraduates Geoff Evans and Ariel Lambert, who both graduated last May, helped put 5,000 Civil War-era documents — letters, diaries, maps, public records — into digital format. Focusing on two counties, one in Virginia and one in Pennsylvania, the project places history at the fingertips of students and scholars around the world. Donors are backing this innovative effort

U.Va.'s fund-raising campaign tallies $1.43 billion

By Bill Sublette

Dec. 31, 2000 will long be remembered in the University's history. On that day, the Campaign for the University officially concluded, marking the end of a fund-raising effort that took the better part of a decade. The results have been tallied, and they were officially reported March 14 to the Campaign Executive Committee. The total: $1,427,912,522 in gifts, pledges and other commitments.

When campaign planning began in the early 1990s, University officials and members of the Board of Visitors envisioned a goal of $350 million to $500 million.

The University at that time was determined to enter the 21st century able to finance its long-term commitments to academic excellence. Beginning in 1990, the Commonwealth of Virginia started to reduce its support for higher education, and U.Va. realized that without increased private support, it could not sustain the quality of its programs. Between '90 and '95, the portion of the University's budget funded by the state dropped from 27 percent to 12 percent. Today, the University receives 14.4 percent of its budget from the state.

Despite this, the University has managed to remain among the top 25 universities in the country in the annual rankings by U.S. News & World Report and is currently tied with the University of California at Berkeley as the No. 1 public institution.
The campaign total is the second-highest amount ever raised by a single public university. Last week, Berkeley announced the close of its campaign, which also ended in December, with a record sum of $1.44 billion.

Exceeding all expectations, the U.Va. campaign ran counter to the standard model in several ways, according to Robert D. Sweeney, the University's vice president for development. Typically, such fund-raising efforts lose steam over time, he said. Propelled by major gifts early in the process, they usually peak at about their midpoint and then taper off. That was hardly the pattern shown in the University's seven-year campaign.

Some 142,000 donors took part in the campaign, including alumni, parents of current and former students, friends of the institution, corporations and foundations. In the final month, donors committed $159 million, nearly 16 percent of the campaign's goal, or 11 percent of the total.

"The University is indebted to all of its loyal volunteers and generous donors who more than a decade ago joined us on what seemed, at the time, a most difficult journey," said University President John T. Casteen III. "They met every challenge and every new goal, working tirelessly to raise private funds to enhance our great university and prepare it to meet future aspirations. Our success belongs to them."

Getting a head start on the rest of the institution, the Jefferson Scholars Program, the Darden School and the Law School began fund-raising efforts in 1990, 1991 and 1992, respectively. The quiet phase of the campaign for the rest of the University began on July 1, 1993, and early success prompted the University to set the bar at $750 million at the 1995 public kickoff.

Three years later, in February 1998, the Campaign Executive Committee recommended to the Board of Visitors that they raise the goal to $1 billion. The board approved the increase, and the campaign continued to pick up speed, posting successively higher totals each year. Bolstered by a $60 million gift from Frank Batten (Arts & Sciences '50) for the Darden School, the campaign topped the $1 billion mark in December 1999, a year ahead of schedule.

Of the $1.43 billion raised, $638 million (45 percent) came from alumni and $307 million (21 percent) from non-alumni, including $22 million from parents. The campaign also received $174 million from corporations, $239 million from foundations and $70 million from other organizations.

Building projects

People and places benefit from the campaign