Why Give
An evermore critical source of revenue
You may think Carolina needs minimal support from private donors. After all, as a state university, we receive funding from the North Carolina legislature, and we also get revenue from other sources such as student tuition and fees.
But while the state remains generous, its appropriations as a portion of our revenue pie have been flat — in fiscal year 2007, they accounted for 24 percent, the same level as five years earlier in 2002. And, to honor our commitment to keep Carolina as affordable as possible, our funding from student tuition and fees has risen by only 2 percent over the same period, to 10 percent of our overall revenue.
In contrast, our revenue from gifts, private grants and investment income has jumped by 11 percent and now provides 24 percent of our revenue.
The trend is obvious. Private support will play an evermore critical role in enabling Carolina to carry out its mission of teaching, research and public service.
A margin of excellence
Private support makes the difference between Carolina being a great university and merely a good one. Consider just a few of the reasons why:
Each year, gifts fund some $1 million in merit scholarships that cover at least a portion of college costs for about 200 students throughout their four-year undergraduate education, and that doesn’t include the independently administered Morehead-Cain and Robertson programs. Another $1.75 million in need-based scholarships does the same for roughly 600 students.
These awards help Carolina attract the best and most-deserving students from around the state and nation. Since 2000, for example, of the 45 UNC students who’ve earned some of the nation’s most distinguished scholarships, such as the Rhodes, Luce, Goldwater and Truman, more than half came to Chapel Hill on a donor-funded scholarship.
For faculty, endowed professorships give us an edge to recruit and retain some of the nation’s most outstanding teachers, scholars and researchers. Examples include Bill Ferris, former chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Pam Durban, acclaimed author.
Many attract additional dollars to Carolina and carry out work with profound benefits for society. A few examples:
Oscar Barbarin, L. Richardson and Emily Preyer Bicentennial Distinguished Professor for Strengthening Families in the School of Social Work, is using a $6.2 million grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to study ways to combat the academic underachievement of minority boys.
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Etta Pisano |
Etta D. Pisano, Kenan Professor of Radiology and Biomedical Engineering, is using funds from GE Healthcare to establish a Center for Excellence in Breast Cancer Imaging within the University’s Biomedical Research Imaging Center. This is a University-wide center for excellence created to advance and commercialize research and technological developments to detect, diagnose and treat breast cancer.
Mike Ramsey, Minnie N. Goldby Distinguished Professorship of Chemistry, carries out research in Chapman Hall, part of our Science Complex benefiting from campaign gifts. Ramsey is a pioneer in the field of microfluidics and nanofluidics. Since coming to Carolina, he has received a $3.8 million National Institutes of Health grant to develop “lab-on-a-chip” technology that could lead to cheaper, faster and more customized DNA sequencing to help health care professionals tailor diagnosis, treatment and prevention to each person’s unique genetic profile.
Otto Zhou, Lyle Jones Distinguished Professor of Physics and Materials Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences, was the principal investigator on a $6 million grant from the Office of Naval Research to find applications for carbon nanotubes. He joined fellow UNC physics professor Jianping Lu and other collaborators to explore how nanotubes could improve X-ray technology. They then parlayed their grant-funded research into Xintek, a small nanotechnology start-up company that licensed technology from UNC and Duke University. The company later established formal collaborations with Siemens Medical Solutions in Erlangen, Germany. That led to a joint venture company, XinRay Systems, with headquarters in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park, to further develop the technology. Potential applications include better screening techniques for cancer diagnosis and airport security.
The resources to compete
Carolina must have private support to remain among the nation’s top universities. Around the country, there are now seven universities with fund-raising campaigns with goals of $3 billion or more.
The list includes the University of Virginia, one of our major peers. Other peers live in the same neighborhood: Michigan’s current campaign has a $2.5 billion goal but has passed that; UCLA raised $3 billion in a campaign that ended in December 2005.
So while Carolina isn’t in a campaign at the moment, it doesn’t mean we can relax. And remember: Gifts of all sizes create Carolina’s margin of excellence. They range from major contributions to Annual Fund gifts that averaged $158 in fiscal year 2007 but totaled $5.5 million – not counting drives in individual schools and units.
Making a difference
By giving to Carolina, you can:
Leave a legacy at UNC. Start an endowment fund and put your name on it, or look for a naming opportunity in or on a building. Show others what you value in life. This is a way to make your name last — a form of immortality — and a permanent commemoration of your life and values.
Lead by example. If you want to teach your children, grandchildren or your peers to be philanthropic, then model the behavior. Give to Carolina and explain why you do it.
Honor someone who deserves it. Start an endowment fund and name it for the person you want to recognize, or name a room or building on the Carolina campus. This is an
honor for the ages.
Honor your relationship to Carolina. Did the University do a lot for you? Do you care deeply about it? Then show what you feel by giving back.
Make something happen because you can. Be part of a solution. Do you have a deep interest in a particular program at Carolina? Then make a meaningful gift to support it — whether it’s classics, public health, the library, nursing or baseball. If you want to move the program forward, then give — because you CAN make a real difference. If you don’t, who will?
Make a difference for a UNC student who needs a helping hand. Add to an existing scholarship fund or start a fund for students who do good academic work and could use your gift to travel, pay the costs of their original research project, or just reduce their hours of paid employment during the semester.
Help Carolina compete and win. We will be the nation’s leading public university if we can continue to bring the very brightest and most productive people toChapel Hill. You can do that by contributing to an academic scholarship fund for undergraduates, to an elite graduate fellowship or to a professorship representing excellence in teaching or research. You can structure this gift to benefit any school or unit of your choosing.
Nurture “Lux. Libertas.” Light and liberty. Donors have assisted in their care and feeding for more than 200 years. Fund a library endowment, a scholarship, a professorship or a graduate fellowship in an area of studies that contributes to civic values, free expression or knowledge about other cultures that you believe is essential to an informed electorate.
Help cure cancer or cystic fibrosis or heart disease or AIDS or any of the scourges of our time. Your gift can be used for seed money to start promising new lines of research — or to provide fellowships or clinical professorships to students and faculty members who work with patients at UNC.
Help yourself! If giving to Carolina can help in your retirement planning or estate planning, then make the appropriate gift.
- A life-income gift allows you to give an asset to Carolina now but receive income for life. You may also receive a charitable income-tax credit and avoid, at transfer, the capital gain tax on an appreciated asset.
- A life-income gift or a bequest can help reduce your estate taxes. Note that estate taxes are being phased out under the revised federal tax code and will be gone by 2010; in the meantime, considerable vigilance is needed for estates still subject to tax.
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