News Release

UNC-Chapel Hill sets fund-raising record in fiscal year 2007

CHAPEL HILL – The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill set a new record for gifts in fiscal 2007.  

UNC-Chapel Hill received $250.8 million in private gifts in fiscal 2007, which ended June 30. The total follows on the heels of fiscal 2006’s $239 million in gifts and represents the fourth straight year that Carolina has set a new record for such support. Gifts account for money that is immediately available to the university.

The campus also had 71,740 donors, its most ever.

“This is an historic year for Carolina,” said Paul Fulton, a member of the university’s Board of Trustees and co-chair of the Carolina First Campaign Steering Committee. “We’re immensely grateful to our donors. They value what Carolina does for students and society and understand how important private gifts are to furthering our mission.”

Giving in 2007 put UNC-Chapel Hill over the top in the Carolina First Campaign, the private fund-raising drive that supports Carolina’s vision to be the nation’s leading public university. Carolina exceeded the campaign’s $2 billion goal on Feb. 21, 2007, and since has raised the drive’s total to $2.2 billion in commitments, which include pledges as well as gifts. Carolina First began in July 1999 and will end Dec. 31, 2007.

“It was a tremendous achievement to surpass our $2 billion goal more than 10 months ahead of schedule,” said Mike Overlock, Carolina First co-chair. “It’s just as impressive that we continue to enjoy tremendous momentum for the campaign. There has been no let-down, and that attests to the remarkable dedication of our supporters.”

A $50 million commitment from Dennis and Joan Gillings to support the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Public Health put Carolina First over the $2 billion goal. That marked the single largest commitment in university history. Dennis Gillings is the chairman and chief executive officer of Quintiles Transnational Corp., a Research Triangle Park-based pharmaceutical services company. Joan Gillings has had careers in public health and commercial real estate.

Other 2007 highlights included a $21.3 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop effective, inexpensive drugs to treat late-stage African sleeping sickness and visceral leishmaniasis.

Commitments supporting students included a donation from High Point businessman Earl N. “Phil” Phillips Jr. to create study-abroad-in-Asia scholarships for up to 50 undergraduates annually in UNC-Chapel Hill’s College of Arts and Sciences, as well as $4 million from the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust to create four scholarships for undergraduate music students each year in the college.

And, in a move to help more high school students realize their ambition to attend college, Carolina was one of 10 higher education institutions joining the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation in a $10 million partnership to create advising programs to help low-income students enroll in college. The network of programs created through the partnership will be headquartered at UNC-Chapel Hill, which will receive $1 million over four years to create the Carolina College Advising Corps. This effort will place recent UNC-Chapel Hill graduates as college advisers in 18 partner high schools across the state.

Along with creating music scholarships, the Kenan trust gave $4 million to support a new College of Arts and Sciences music building now under construction on Columbia Street between Hanes Art Building and Abernethy Hall. Commitments to building projects also included $5 million to the college from alumnus Max Carrol Chapman Jr., a Wall Street businessman, to help fund a new building in the Carolina Physical Science Complex.

Commitments in 2007 helped the university create 18 endowed professorships, as well as 114 undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships. That raised Carolina First’s totals for these priorities to 199 and 717, respectively.

Overall in the campaign, UNC-Chapel Hill alumni have given $781.3 million, while corporations and foundations have provided almost $839 million. The balance has come from friends of the university and other organizations.

“Our support comes from every corner,” said Charlie Shaffer, campaign co-chair. “And the impact of that support can be seen wherever you look on this campus, as well as across the state and around the world.”

Development Communications contact: Scott Ragland, (919) 638-0467, scott_ragland@unc.edu
News Services contact: Lisa Katz, (919) 962-2093, lisa_katz@unc.edu