The Missouri State University Foundation is successful, raising more than $20 million for the seventh year in a row, setting a new annual record.
The foundation raised nearly $36 million in the fiscal year that ended June 30, surpassing the previous record of $32 million set two years earlier.
In total, almost 20,000 donors have made a donation over the past 12 months.
“We celebrate this momentous achievement with the thousands of alumni and friends who care about the university,” Brent Dunn, executive director of the MSU Foundation, said in a news release. “Their gifts have and will continue to touch many lives in positive ways.”
In a follow-up interview, Dunn said the foundation, which was founded 43 years ago, has hit its stride. It raised less than $400,000 in its first year and didn’t top $10 million in annual giving until 2006.
“It takes time, but I think people are seeing the impact of private support and that there is a big impact on campus,” he said. “That helps the momentum.”
Dunn said the funds the foundation raises were initially seen as the “icing on the cake,” but private donations now play an increasingly important role across campus, from supporting students to building or improving facilities.
This year, more than $4 million in student grants were provided thanks to private donations.
“Private support is an integral part of everything on campus,” he said.
Much of last year’s giving went to student scholarships and programs, faculty support, and capital projects such as the Judith Enyeart Reynolds Center for Arts and Humanities, Roy Blunt Hall, Smart University Advancement Center, and the Wulff-Risner Agriculture Science Center on the West Plains campus.
Of the steady increase in giving, Dunn said the university’s alumni base has grown and its profile has increased. He said the foundation has also gotten better at engaging graduates and supporters.
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This year also saw a change in the university’s relationship with the MSU Foundation, which sold its longtime home in downtown Springfield to the Community Foundation of the Ozarks.
The nonprofit will soon break ground on the Clifton M. Smart University Advancement Center — named for the university’s recently retired 11th president — and will be owned by Missouri State and used primarily by the separate MSU Foundation. It will be located on the main Springfield campus.
This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Missouri State Foundation Sets New Annual Fundraising Record
