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Berkeley Surpasses $1 Billion Mark in Fundraising Campaign By José Rodriguez, University Relations Posted April 21, 1999 On the eve of crossing the billion dollar mark, the campus brought donors and scholarship recipients together for a reception in University House. Nancy Witter Bates and her husband, Jack, (center) are surrounded by winners of the Jean C. Witter Jr. Liberty Scholarship Fund. The students benefit from a fund established by Nancy Witter's father in 1943. Berkeley crossed a major milestone last week when the fundraising drive it launched to help attract, support and retain the best faculty and students crossed the $1 billion mark -- bringing the campus closer to meeting its final goal and to setting a record for university fundraising on the West Coast. The $1 billion raised so far represents more than 335,000 gifts from individuals, corporations and foundations, as well as a more than 50 percent increase in the share of alumni who give to the campus. "Reaching the $1 billion milestone is a magnificent accomplishment and a great tribute to our alumni and friends who recognize that sustaining Berkeley's excellence now requires both public funding and private support," said Chancellor Berdahl. "Successful fundraising means that we can continue to provide California's top students an education at the highest level. It also means that we can support and encourage the kinds of research that will be needed to sustain California's economy and contribute to the well-being of our people in the 21st century," he said. At the current rate of giving by alumni and friends, the campus will exceed the announced goal of $1.1 billion well before the Dec. 31, 2000 target date set by the Campaign for the New Century. Berkeley's fundraising efforts are on track to match or surpass the most ever raised by a university on the West Coast: $1.269 billion by Stanford in its Centennial Campaign, raised between 1987 and 1992. The Berkeley campaign is already making an appreciable impact on campus. New endowments -- including 21 distinguished professorships, 46 faculty chairs, 120 graduate fellowships and 243 undergraduate scholarships -- are aiding the recruitment and retention of top faculty and students. The unrestricted Chancellor's Millennium Fund, a $50 million component of the drive, is helping Chancellor Berdahl to restore the strength of the University Library, create Chancellor's Chairs for new faculty, and expand the statewide K-12 outreach efforts of the Berkeley Pledge. Because many gifts are created as endowment funds, only a portion of funds raised so far is available for current use. This includes professorships, fellowships and scholarships, where the principal is invested to ensure future growth. In that sense, the Campaign for the New Century is true to its name: Promising greater earnings well into the future. Perhaps the most visible signs of the campaign are the variety of capital projects launched by specific gifts. These include the 12,300-seat Haas Pavilion, opening in fall 1999; the renovation of Hearst Memorial Mining Building; and the new Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library. In the remaining months of the campaign, alumni volunteers in regions throughout the nation and overseas will redouble fundraising efforts for such priorities as University Library collections, the new East Asian Library and Studies Center, and infrastructure needs in chemistry, physics, the neurosciences and bioengineering. Peter Haas of the Class of 1940 was chair of the Chancellor's Campaign Cabinet, which raised initial gifts and laid the groundwork for the fundraising effort. Once the Campaign for the New Century was launched publicly in 1996, leadership was passed on to alumni co-chairs F. Warren Hellman ('55), John Hotchkis ('54), Carl Stoney, Jr. ('67, JD '70, MBA '71), and Nadine Tang (MSW '75).   [HOME]   [SEARCH]   [ARCHIVE] April 21 - 27, 1999 (Volume 27, Number 31) Copyright 1999, The Regents of the University of California. Produced and maintained by the Office of Public Affairs at UC Berkeley. Comments? E-mail berkeleyan@pa.urel.berkeley.edu.