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Record Year in Philanthropy Fuels Vision for Dartmouth’s Future

August 06, 2014  by Office of Communications

Dartmouth raised a record $287.2 million in philanthropic commitments in the 2014 fiscal year, which ended June 30, including $255.6 million in cash gifts received this year. The total includes the largest gift in the College’s history, as well as record annual giving through the Dartmouth College Fund and outstanding performance by the annual funds at Dartmouth’s professional schools of business, engineering, and medicine.

These results have come as President Phil Hanlon ’77, in the first year of his presidency, has begun to implement a comprehensive vision for Dartmouth’s future that puts Dartmouth faculty at the leading edge of discovery and gives students uncommon access to new ideas and hands-on learning experiences.

“This outpouring of generosity at every level from alumni, parents, and friends is a tremendous vote of confidence in the power and promise of Dartmouth, at a moment of extraordinary change in higher education,” says President Hanlon. “Already, we are building on existing strengths in the academic enterprise—interdisciplinary faculty collaboration and experiential learning opportunities that emphasize the transmission of wisdom as much as knowledge—and are laying the foundations to extend Dartmouth’s global impact far into the future.”

Gifts Spur Initiatives in Academics, Innovation, Student Life, and the Arts

Fueled by the largest-ever single gift to the College—$100 million from an anonymous donor to support the academic enterprise, including a $50 million, 2-1 matching component to spur additional philanthropy in the year ahead—the impact of this year’s giving is already visible in initiatives that are improving student life and strengthening Dartmouth’s academic mission. Among initiatives currently under way:

  • forming up to 10 collaborative, interdisciplinary teams of faculty from across the College and professional schools, organized around solving complex issues of global importance. The first to be announced: The William H. Neukom Academic Cluster in Computational Science, funded with a $10 million gift from Trustee Emeritus Bill Neukom ’64 and matched with an additional $5 million from the anonymous $100 million gift.
  • opening an Innovation Center and New Venture Incubator offering co-curricular programming in entrepreneurship and providing a home base for Dartmouth’s growing undergraduate start-ups. The center and three-year pilot program, announced by Hanlon at his inauguration, were fully funded within nine months, with $4 million in gifts from 15 alumni, parents, and friends of the College.
  • preparing to break ground on a major renovation and expansion of the Hood Museum of Art that will radically increase gallery and teaching spaces and create a prominent new entrance from Wheelock Street. With an anonymous gift of $10 million to create a Museum Learning Center, and other contributions, the College is more than halfway toward its $50 million fundraising goal.

Even without the extraordinary $100 million gift, the 2014 total, made up of annual fund gifts from alumni, parents, and friends of the College and Dartmouth’s three professional schools, as well as restricted gifts to the endowment, surpasses the five-year average of $154.6 million. Annual gifts and endowment income underwrite approximately 39 percent of the overall operating budget.

Annual Giving Is at All-Time High

Centennial Circle of Dartmouth Alumnae Raises $14.8 Million

An unprecedented group of more than 100 Dartmouth alumnae has committed gifts of at least $100,000 each to Dartmouth’s annual fund—raising $14.8 million toward scholarships for undergraduate women through the Dartmouth College Fund.

Read more about the new Centennial Circle of Dartmouth Alumnae.

Celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, the Dartmouth College Fund raised a record $48.3 million in cash gifts, and, with interest from endowed annual fund gifts, achieved $53.7 million. Annual unrestricted gifts through the Fund help support financial aid for undergraduates who need it—nearly 50 percent do—including more than 400 who are the first in their families to attend college. Fund gifts also directly sustain the full undergraduate experience, from the academic core and independent research to athletics, outdoor programs, and foreign study.

Dartmouth’s annual fundraising set two institutional records. Highlights include:

  • The Dartmouth College Fund’s record $48.3 million in cash gifts—a 5 percent dollar increase over last year. With the addition of interest from endowed annual funds, the Fund achieved a new record total of $53.7 million. Led by Fund chair Bruce Miller ’74, nearly 24,000 alumni donors contributed to the Fund, representing a participation rate of 42.8 percent—second-highest in the Ivy League and among the highest in the country.
  • The newly formed Centennial Circle of Dartmouth Alumnae, an unprecedented group of 113 leading alumnae philanthropists, each of whom committed to gifts of $100,000 or more toward scholarships for women through the Dartmouth College Fund, raised a total of $14.8 million.
  • The Dartmouth College Fund total also includes $4.3 million in gifts through the Parents and Grandparents Fund, surpassing that fund’s $4 million FY2014 goal.
  • Annual giving to Dartmouth Athletics totaled a record $4.7 million, topping last year’s $4.3 million record by nearly 10 percent.
  • The Tuck School of Business Annual Giving broke all-time records in both giving and participation, with $6.35 million in gifts from 70.9 percent of alumni. The previous record, set in FY13, was $6.3 million.

The classes of 1944, 1954, 1964, and 1989 broke reunion gift total records for the Dartmouth College Fund in their 70th, 60th, 50th, and 25th reunion years, respectively. Overall participation in reunions was at an all-time high, with 2,800 alumni in attendance, topping the previous record of 2,666, set last year.

Why such strong giving to Dartmouth this year?

“These results are unambiguous,” says Bob Lasher ’88, senior vice president for Advancement. “At every level, the Dartmouth community has wholeheartedly embraced the vision President Hanlon has set out for the College—and the important contributions Dartmouth students, faculty, and alumni are making in the world every day.”

He adds, “We are grateful to everyone who gave, and commend our 3,800 alumni volunteers for their initiative, stamina, creativity, and persuasiveness. They worked tirelessly to make these amazing results possible.”

This story was updated on August 7, 2014.