Penn Campaign: $4.3 Billion, Transforming the University |
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March 12, 2013,
Volume 59, No. 24 |
After seven years of widespread support and alumni participation, the University of Pennsylvania culminated its Making History campaign, raising $4.3 billion, strengthening Penn’s position among the world’s foremost universities, and making major breakthroughs in addressing society’s most complex challenges, Penn President Amy Gutmann announced recently.
Designed to integrate fields of study with high social impact, add new state-of-the-art facilities, attract and retain exceptional faculty, and increase student aid and alumni engagement, the Campaign far exceeded expectations on each of these fronts and more. High impact areas span student financial aid, innovative interdisciplinary teaching and research, local and global engagement, and health care.
“When the Penn community comes together for a common purpose it generates remarkable transformative power,” President Gutmann said. “Penn’s undergraduate all-grant, no-loan financial aid policy and our graduate and professional aid—which doubled over the course of the Campaign—are ensuring educational access to a Penn education for the brightest students regardless of socioeconomic background. One out of seven Penn freshmen today will be the first in their families to graduate college, and a quarter are under-represented minorities. With new state-of-the-art facilities, our eminent faculty are revolutionizing the ways we teach, learn, and conduct collaborative research across disciplines. Across the broadest spectrum of the liberal arts and professions, Penn’s capacity and commitment to making a positive difference, at home and across the globe, are unsurpassed. Penn’s campus is also more strikingly beautiful than ever, with our 24-acre Penn Park—once an ugly parking lot and now a home to new athletic and recreational spaces—welcoming everyone into the greenest urban campus in the country.”
Launched in 2007, the Campaign hit its financial target of $3.5 billion 16 months ahead of the December 31, 2012 conclusion. It was an unusually broad-based campaign, attracting gifts from 326,952 donors.
The largest single gift in Penn’s history and the biggest ever to name a medical school in the United States came in 2011 from Raymond G. and the late Ruth Perelman, who gave $225 million to name the Perelman School of Medicine. It provides unrestricted support for scholarship, faculty, and research.
The largest cumulative contribution to the Campaign came from The late Honorable Leonore C. Annenberg, through the Annenberg Foundation, totalling more than $286 million and funding a broad range of innovative communication, research, and educational outreach programs, in addition to endowed professorships.
Strengthening the University’s eminent faculty and interdisciplinary programs and ensuring Penn’s long-term financial stability were key objectives of the Campaign. Thanks to the $2 billion added to Penn’s research and programmatic development, innovative interdisciplinary programs were created and enhanced. Outright gifts and pledges to the endowment totaled $1.9 billion, surpassing the Campaign’s ambitious $1.75 billion target. Of that $1.9 billion pledged, $1.45 billion has already been received and added to Penn’s endowment. This amount is equal to approximately all cash additions to the endowment in the previous 263-year history of the University.
“The impact of the Making History campaign on increasing educational access, integrating knowledge across disciplines, and putting that knowledge to good work in the world has been nothing short of transformational. The overwhelming response we received is a testament to the strength and confidence of our community. People participated because Penn’s work resonates with them and what they are passionate about,” Dr. Gutmann continued. “We wish to thank everyone who made this achievement possible—our alumni, parents, donors, volunteers, and most especially our Board of Trustees and Campaign leadership.”
The effort was led by George A. Weiss, W’65, Campaign Chair; Co-Chairs Robert M. Levy, WG’74, Rosemary Mazanet, GR’81, M’86, and Andrea Mitchell, CW’67, and the late Christopher H. Browne, C’69 and Henry A. Jordan, M’62, RES’67; and President of Penn Alumni Lee Spelman Doty, W’76.
For more information about Making History: The Campaign for Penn, visit finalreport.upenn.edu
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