IU raising $750M in campaign

IU-Bloomington has raised $300 million toward its latest fund-raising campaign which could bring anywhere between $750 million and $1 billion in additional money to campus. \nThe drive -- called "Matching the Promise" -- is already funding undergraduate scholarships, graduate fellowships, endowed chairs and building projects such as Simon Hall and Multidisciplinary Science Building Phase II.\nThe University will match money donated during the campaign, which began July 1, 2003, and will continue until June 30, 2010, using funds from the Commitment to Excellence Fund, said IU Foundation Senior Vice President for Development Kent Dove.\nFor example, if a donation of $50,000 was given to the campaign, the yearly interest payout would be 5 percent, or $2,500. IU will then take money from the Commitment to Excellence fund to match that yearly payout, effectively doubling the amount of money the gift generates. Money for the Commitment to Excellence fund is raised by the $1,000 increase in tuition that the IU Board of Trustees approved in 2003. \n"We really hope before we go public, we can announce a campaign of over a billion dollars," Dove said. "One of the other factors affecting the timing of the public announcement of the campaign is waiting for the new chancellor of the Bloomington campus to be named because we want the chancellor to have some input into the goals and priorities of the campaign."\nIU-Bloomington Interim Chancellor Ken Gros Louis said the priorities for this campaign were set before he had his return as interim chancellor, and it shouldn't be a problem to get his successor up to speed once that person is chosen.\nCurrently, there are three other fund-raising campaigns active right now at IU but none of them involve the IUB campus. The last campaign that focused on this campus was a six-year-long effort which concluded in 2000. It raised more than $500 million for endowed faculty positions. That drive bested its original goal about $200 million. As a result of this campaign, IU shot to first in the Big Ten in the number of endowed faculty positions. \nGros Louis said the different deans of the schools within IU play an important role in the early stages of a fund-raising campaign like this. Newly-appointed Kelley School Dean Dan Smith said no university can be better than the quality of its students and faculty. \n"The 'Matching the Promise' campaign offers a unique opportunity for donors to increase the impact of their gifts to the University," he said. "This in turn has encouraged greater donor support than what otherwise would have been possible"