UI receives record $219 million in private gifts
Gifts to the UI and the UI Foundation totaled an institution record $219.6 million for fiscal year ending June 30, 2002, according to Stephen K. Rugg, UI chief financial officer and treasurer of the UI Foundation.
Rugg announced the private gift figures during the business session of the foundations 67th Annual Meeting on Sept. 27.
Rugg noted that giving direct to the foundation has increased each year over a five-year period, from $85 million in FY 1998 to $190.2 million in the last fiscal year. Coupled with the $29.4 million given directly to the UI, the record $219.6 million in private gift support is $72.6 million more than the $147 million in combined private gifts reported in FY 2001.
In FY 2002, alumni provided 22 percent or $48 million of the $219.6 million. Friends contributed 10 percent or $23.6 million; corporations, 44 percent or $95.6 million; foundations, 13 percent or $28.4 million; and associations, 11 percent or $24 million.
Allocation of the FY 2002 funds, as directed by the donors, included $59.3 million for academic units and programs, $51.7 million to the universitys endowment, $34.1 million for buildings and equipment, $33.2 million for research, 11.6 million for other restricted purposes, $7 million for public service and extension, $6 million for athletics, $3 million for faculty/staff compensation, and more than $2.7 million for student financial aid.
Of the $219.6 million received last year, 72 percent or $158.4 million was designated by donors for current use. Those funds provided support to a number of programs across the universitys campuses at Chicago, Springfield, and Urbana-Champaign. Twenty-four percent or $51.7 million was invested in endowed funds, which are held in pooled investment accounts under the policy supervision of the Investment Policy Committee of the Foundation Board and the Finance and Audit Committee of the UI Board of Trustees. Earnings from endowed funds help support an array of university endeavors, including student financial aid, and faculty and program support. Such investments also provide specified annuity and life-income funds for many donors.
The UI total endowment was $1.377 billion as of June 30, 2002, nearly three and one-half times greater than it was 10 years ago. And, in spite of recent stock market setbacks, the active endowment, which represents 64 percent of the universitys endowment picture, had climbed from $633.8 million at the end of FY 1998 to $885.6 million at the end of last June.
Also included in the UIs total endowment is $352.5 million designated as revocable deferred gifts. Another $138.9 million of the endowment is in charitable trusts and other irrevocable gifts held by the foundation and others.
The foundations endowment goal is to provide a distribution to the university each year to meet its spending needs coupled with a desire to protect the purchasing power of the endowment against inflation. Over the past 10 years, the investment return allowed the foundation not only to meet the spending and inflation objectives, but also permitted a net real return to the endowment of 2.1 percent.
Membership in the Presidents Council, the universitys highest donor-recognition program administered by the UI Foundation with a minimum giving requisite of $15,000 also has grown. Rugg said membership in the Presidents Council rose from 3,606 individuals 10 years ago to 8,276 in 2002, with an increase of 174 new members from one year ago.
Gifts totaling more than $10 million to benefit Illinois
- A bequest of $500,000 from John Finch to University Laboratory High School, the largest single gift commitment ever made to Uni High.
- A gift in excess of $1 million from Richard M. and Gayl S. Pyatt of Pinckneyville will support the newly opened William R. and Clarice V. Spurlock Museum.
- A significant gift from Robert and Juanita Simpson of Mount Vernon, Ohio, will endow the Juanita J. and Robert E. Simpson Rare Book and Special Collections Chair at the University Library æ the first endowed faculty chair in the Library æ and the Juanita J. and Robert E. Simpson Professorship in American Literature in the department of English.
- A gift of nearly $1.7 million from Sohaib and Sara Abbasi of Atherton, Calif., will create the Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Professorship in Computer Science and the Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Fellowship in Computer Science.
- Mars Inc. has made a gift in excess of $1 million to support the Mars Nutrition Research Lectureship and the Nutrition Research Chair in the department of food science and human nutrition. The chair is held by Professor John W. Erdman Jr. In addition, Marjorie Atchison Becker made a $150,000 gift to create the Henry J. and Marjorie Atchison Becker Endowed Fellowship in Food Processing.
- A gift of $1.25 million from Thomas W. and Mary Ellen OLaughlin of Champaign will create the Thomas W. and Mary Ellen OLaughlin Chair in Economics.
- A bequest in excess of $3 million from Margaret Secondino of Indianapolis, will provide support for the College of Veterinary Medicine. The new surgery and radiology wing will be named the Secondino Family Surgical Center. The gift also will enhance the Secondino Scholarship Fund.
- A high six-figure gift from Gordon J. and Helen P. Kruger of Normal, Ill., will support academic programs in the College of Veterinary Medicine.
- A gift of $1.25 million from Dean and Nancy Langford of Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., will create the Dorothy A. and Claude R. Langford Endowed Chair in Music and the Dorothy A. and Claude R. Langford Fellowships in Music in the keyboard divisions of the School of Music.
- Rick and Liz Heiligenstein of Belleville have established a second endowed chair in the College of Law. The John E. Cribbet Endowed Chair in Law honors the longtime law faculty member who was a former dean of the college and former chancellor of the Urbana-Champaign campus.
- Family and friends of a longtime and prominent UI professor and dean turned out a week earlier to dedicate the Vernon K. Zimmerman Endowed Chair and the Vernon K. Zimmerman Center for International Education and Research in Accounting. Both were funded with private gifts totaling $3 million from the Vernon K. and Marilyn Pflederer Zimmerman Foundation.
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