UofL sets fund raising record for fourth straight year

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The University of Louisville raised nearly $141 million in private funds in Fiscal Year 2011, a record amount for a single year.

It is the fourth year in a row that UofL has bested its previous year’s fund raising total.

Some 29,000 donors gave or pledged the $140.7 million—funds that will be used to create student scholarships, recruit and retain faculty, boost teaching and research, support academic units and libraries and improve the university’s infrastructure, said UofL President James Ramsey.

“Becoming a premier metropolitan research university takes money,” Ramsey said. “Our remarkable fund raising efforts over the past few years are helping counter the effects of a sluggish economy and declining state funding. I’m extremely proud of this accomplishment.

Not only was private giving $19 million higher in FY2011 than it was the previous year, but about 1,700 more donors stepped forward to make gifts and pledges, said Keith Inman, UofL’s vice president for university advancement.

In addition, nearly 14 percent of UofL’s alumni donated money to their alma mater, a percentage substantially higher than the 9 percent national average for public research universities.

“This shows UofL is an institution on the move,” Inman said. “People want to be part of an exciting, vibrant university and that’s why they’re giving to UofL in record numbers.”

So far, UofL has raised $518 million through its “Charting the Course” fund raising campaign that began in 2007 with an original goal of $750 million. On July 14, Ramsey and UofL’s Board of Trustees approved a plan to extend the campaign through 2014 and to increase its goal to $1 billion.

Chairmen for the campaign are Owsley Brown Frazier, UofL Board of Trustees chairman; Henry Heuser, UofL Board of Overseers chairman and Chester Porter, UofL Foundation chairman.