News Release

UNC builds upon Carolina First
momentum; raises goal to $2 billion

CHAPEL HILL – The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is aiming higher.

This morning (Oct. 1), the Carolina First Campaign Steering Committee approved increasing the fund-raising drive’s goal from $1.8 billion to $2 billion, setting the stage for further boosting the university’s vision of becoming the nation’s leading public university. The move places UNC among just eight American universities pursuing fund-raising goals of at least $2 billion.

“ Carolina will always be a good university, but private support has provided the margin of excellence that makes it a great one,” Chancellor James Moeser said. “The Carolina First Campaign has already furthered that tradition. By raising our goal to $2 billion, we will build on the tremendous success and momentum that the campaign has generated. Our aim is to be nothing less than the nation’s leading public university. The campaign has proven up to that challenge.”

The major thrusts of Carolina First’s higher goal will be faculty support, student merit-based scholarships and capital projects. These three areas rank as Carolina ’s most pressing priorities at this point in the campaign, which began July 1, 1999, Moeser said. They also represent the keys to keeping the University competitive with its peers, he said.

By raising Carolina First’s goal to $2 billion, the university joins these seven institutions with current private fund-raising drives of at least $2 billion: the universities of California - Los Angeles , Chicago , Michigan , Virginia and Washington, Johns Hopkins and New York universities.

Institutions that have completed campaigns of $2 billion or more since 1999 are Columbia , Duke and Harvard universities, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Southern California .

Of the $200 million more being raised at UNC, $60 million will go toward creating an endowment for merit-based scholarships. That effort already is off and running, with a $10 million gift from the estate of Col. John Harvey Robinson, a career Army officer who earned a master’s in business administration at Carolina in 1957 and died in 2004.

Another $10 million will be raised to endow the Carolina Covenant, a groundbreaking initiative that enables students from low-income families to graduate from UNC debt-free.

Of the remaining $130 million, $100 million will target faculty support. The last $30 million will go to emerging initiatives at UNC such as the Renaissance Computing Institute, which aims to strengthen the North Carolina economy. Based at UNC, the interdisciplinary institute also is supported by Duke and N.C. State universities, and partners with business leaders to enhance the competitiveness of North Carolina industries.

Along with a higher goal, the Carolina First Campaign has gained six months in duration and will run through Dec. 31, 2007. To reach $2 billion by then, it will take an average of $15.85 million in commitments per month. Since starting, the campaign has brought in a monthly average commitment of nearly $21 million.

“The campaign has more than met our expectations,” Moeser said. “That tells me that we can expect more. Our campaign leadership and volunteers, our faculty and administrators, our development staff, and, most of all, our supporters -- because of them, I believe $2 billion is well within our reach.”

As of Sept. 26, Carolina First had brought in $1.56 billion, 78 percent of the new goal, while being about three-quarters complete.

UNC alumni had given more than $592 million, and corporations and foundations had contributed $604.6 million. The balance had come from friends of the university and other organizations.

“The diversity of our support attests to the excitement behind the campaign,” Moeser said. “People and institutions give to what they believe in, and our donors believe in Carolina . They know that their gifts are being put to good use.”

The campaign had created 151 professorships and 523 scholarships and fellowships, as well as added more than $628 million to Carolina ’s endowment. Overall, the drive has funded new research, spawned new programs and initiatives, and helped pay for the renovation and construction of campus facilities.

The Carolina Covenant is just one of many initiatives supported by the campaign. Others include a clinical genetics research center that brings together researchers, physicians and medical faculty to explore the relationship between genetics and diseases and transfers promising new treatments from the laboratory to patient bedsides.

 Among the numerous facilities benefiting from private support are an addition to the School of Nursing , providing classrooms, faculty offices and research space, and renovations to Memorial Hall, transforming the campus landmark into a comfortable, elegant venue for the performing arts.

“Thanks to our donors’ generosity, we have better facilities for our faculty to teach in and perform their research,” Moeser said. “We have more scholarships to bring the best and brightest students to Chapel Hill . We have more and better-funded endowments to help us keep and recruit world-renowned scholars so that our students will learn from the best and the citizens of our state will benefit from the critical research that they conduct in our laboratories and libraries.”

That record has Carolina primed to reach $2 billion, Moeser said. And raising more private funds will become increasingly critical for the campus, as they -- combined with investment income -- provide some 20 percent of UNC’s annual budget.

“The campaign’s continued success will be essential to Carolina ’s continued success,” he said.

The 68-member Carolina First Campaign Steering Committee is led by co-chairs Paul Fulton, former president and chief executive officer of Bassett Furniture Industries and past dean of UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School; Charlie Shaffer, president and chief executive officer of the Marcus Institute in Atlanta; and Mike Overlock, who retired in 1996 from Goldman, Sachs and Co., where his career included heading mergers and acquisitions.

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Development Communications contact: Scott Ragland, (919) 962-0027 or scott_ragland@unc.edu
News Services contact: Lisa Katz, (919) 962-2093, (919) 638-0474 (cell) or lisa_katz@unc.edu