Sun Devil supporters’ tremendous generosity to Campaign ASU 2020 enabled dementia research, coronavirus testing, community revitalization, student scholarships and fellowships and much more. Nearly 359,700 individuals, corporations and foundations donated to Arizona State University’s fundraising campaign that raised $2.35 billion and established a culture of philanthropy across the university. Of those, 59% were new donors to ASU.
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“The resources the university receives from donor investors are among the most impactful support ASU receives,” said ASU President Michael M. Crow. “They enable us to fund individual students in making progress, to give special resources to individual faculty members, to create entire faculty chairs that change the trajectory of an academic unit. They help us to maintain all of our initiatives in sustainability and dozens of other engagements that allow us to serve more people and accomplish more for the state,” said ASU President Michael M. Crow. “$2.3 billion plus sounds like a huge number, and it is a huge number, but the impact is infinitely greater than that. It’s infinitely greater in lives changed, trajectory changed, outcomes changed.”
Philanthropy is not a replacement for the university’s other sources of revenue, including investments from the state, students, their families, faculty, staff and research grants.
“Private support is critically important to Arizona State University because it enables solutions to problems that can transform lives and improve communities,” ASU Foundation CEO Gretchen Buhlig said. “Private support enables opportunities for growth, innovation and excellence for our students and faculty. Every gift is important, whether it’s $10 or thousands of dollars. It all makes a tremendous impact on our students, faculty and the community.”
The ASU Foundation publicly kicked off Campaign ASU 2020 in January 2017 to raise the long-term fundraising capacity of the university and focused on six priorities: Ensure student access and excellence; champion student success; elevate the academic enterprise; fuel discovery, creativity and innovation, enrich our communities; and drive Sun Devil competitiveness. The campaign concluded December 31, 2020, but fundraising to elevate ASU’s work toward transforming higher education and making it more accessible continues.
During the campaign, Chris West and his family established the Family First Scholarship to assist dependents of veterans who died or were completely and permanently disabled while on active duty with their Chapter 35 benefits, which includes 45 months of education and training benefits.
“What’s so important about this group is they fall short of Veterans Administration help by one year,” West said. “It just fell in our lap that this is a great opportunity to pick up this last year for them. When you speak to them, and you can hear in their voice and see the relief you’re bringing to them, it gives me great joy that I’m touching lives and not just writing checks.”
Campaign ASU 2020 highlights:
• Donors enabled 76,441 undergraduate and graduate students to receive $269 million in ASU Foundation philanthropic scholarships and fellowships during the campaign, which is a 22% increase in scholarship recipients.
• Nearly 88% of the gifts equaled $100 or less during the campaign.
• More than 10,200 gifts equaled $25,000 or more during the campaign.
• The ASU endowment reached the $1 billion threshold. This achievement enables the university to attract and retain distinguished faculty and their research, provide additional scholarships to students, and offer additional enrichment opportunities and research to solve world problems in perpetuity. ASU is one of about 45 public universities and 100 universities overall that have an endowment of $1 billion or more, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers fiscal year 2019 survey.
• During the campaign, $85 million was donated to establish 60 new chairs and professorships, which is a 53% increase during the campaign.
• Nearly 4,747 faculty and staff members donated during Campaign ASU 2020, doubling the number of employees who gave to ASU at the start of the campaign.
• ASU degreed alumni represented 92,501 of the campaign donors, which is up 11% from when the campaign began.
• Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust made a $2 million donation in early 2020 to aid the COVID-19 preparedness response. That gift enabled ASU to quickly mobilize the supplies and equipment needed to offer its COVID-19 saliva test by the beginning of April to the ASU community as well as the community at-large. More than 500,000 tests have been completed since then.
• A transformational gift of $50 million from Charlene and J. Orin Edson is bolstering dementia and Alzheimer’s disease research and enhancing education and training for nurses and caregivers.
