CAMPAIGN NEWS
University surpasses its $5.75 billion campaign goal
In January, six months after meeting a previous "Cornell Now" campaign goal of $4.75 billion, Cornell surpassed its amended goal of $5.75 billion with eleven months left to go in the campaign. This milestone includes funds raised for the Ithaca campus, Cornell Tech and Weill Cornell Medical College.
"I believe that $6 billion is within reach by the campaign's close in December," said Charlie Phlegar, vice president for alumni affairs and development, although no new goal will be set.
Success leading into the final stretch of the campaign has been fueled by a growing base of support as well as by large gifts, said Phlegar Feb. 3, noting "the generosity of an unprecedented number of alumni, parents, students, staff, faculty, friends, corporate donors and foundations, who have given consistently, even during the worst economic recession since the Great Depression." He pointed to the steady rise in the Cornell Annual Fund as evidence of the increasing breadth of support for Cornell. In 2006, the first year of the campaign, the annual fund received nearly $15 million; last year, it reached $36 million. In 2014 more than 55,000 individuals gave to the university.
Campaign funds raised to date have been used for the university's most important strategic priorities, including undergraduate and graduate scholarships and faculty recruitment and retention.
– Emily Sanders Hopkins