Giving Trends Mirror — and Support — Campus Progress

Executive Vice Chancellor Jacqueline Moloney, center, shares a light moment on Commencement Eve with students, from left, Thalia Chodat, Mike Taylor and Kayla Montanez.

Executive Vice Chancellor Jacqueline Moloney, center, shares a light moment on Commencement Eve with students, from left, Thalia Chodat, Mike Taylor and Kayla Montanez. Commencement Eve is the single largest fundraising event for scholarships at UMass Lowell each year

07/02/2015


There are many ways to measure UMass Lowell’s remarkable growth in recent years. Rapidly rising applications and student test scores. National recognition for faculty. Research dollars going through the roof. A spirited energy throughout the campus. 

Here’s another measurement to ponder: Six straight years of increased fundraising support for the university.

During the just-closed fiscal year, alumni, faculty, staff and a host of community and corporate friends gave $21 million to UMass Lowell. That brings the total raised over the past six years to $104.4 million.

“This extraordinary show of generosity demonstrates the excitement the UMass Lowell community feels about everything that’s happening here,” says Edward Chiu, vice chancellor for advancement. “It’s also a testament to their loyalty and the strong ties they have to the university.”

Chiu says he is especially heartened by another statistic: the steady rise in the number of alumni making annual gifts. In 2008–09, at the start of the recession, just 4,683 alumni made an annual gift to the university. By 2014–15, that number had almost doubled, rising to 8,762. 

Not only does this increase buck national trends, Chiu adds, it also helps boost the university in the annual college rankings compiled by U.S. News & World Report, which uses alumni participation as one of its criteria. 

Also surging during this same period were endowed funds. Earlier this fiscal year, UMass Lowell passed a major fundraising milestone when it secured its 400th endowed fund. By June 30, that total had risen to 429.

“We’re very pleased to have crossed that threshold,” says John Davis, the university’s associate vice chancellor for principal gifts. “That’s like having 429 partners — individuals and companies who have a real stake in their funds and in the students, faculty and programs those funds support.”

This groundswell of support bodes well for UMass Lowell’s next major milestone: the public launch this fall of its first-ever comprehensive fundraising campaign. Our Legacy, Our Place: The Campaign for UMass Lowell will focus on five key priorities: increasing financial aid; recruiting and retaining a dynamic faculty; creating the ideal campus environment; investing in athletic programs and facilities; and strengthening alumni engagement and annual giving.

While the $125 million campaign won’t officially launch until October 22, Chiu is “greatly encouraged and moved” by the support Our Legacy, Our Place has already received — close to $56 million during the two-year “quiet phase” of the campaign. “Our donors feel such a strong connection to ‘Our Place,’ and such pride about all the university has accomplished,” Chiu says. “They’ve shown a willingness to invest in that success, in our people and our programs, so that we can do even more.”