MIDDLEBURY — Fundraising improved significantly at Middlebury College over the last 12 months compared to the previous fiscal year, the school announced on July 25.
During the 2014 fiscal year, which ended on June 30, the college received more than $49.9 million in philanthropic support. This amount is $7 million more than the previous year, according to a college press release.
Middlebury College Vice President of Advancement Jim Keynes said the most successful fundraising years on record occurred in 2006, when Middlebury raised $62.2 million, and 2007, when the school took in $60.8 million.
Keynes said the $49.9 million sum this past year came from 19,000 donors, which include alumni, parents, friends and foundations. The donations fund many different programs and projects at the college, which was founded in 1800.
Some 55 percent of alumni made donations in the last year, which the school said was among the highest rates in the country.
Donations to the school’s Annual Fund totaled $3 million, bringing the total of the fund to $18 million. The fund is used for financial aid and faculty support and accounted for 6 percent of the college’s operating revenues last year.
Keynes said the school sets specific fundraising goals every year and that for the 2014 fiscal year Middlebury College exceeded those goals. He added that the school raises money in many ways, including in-person meetings, mailers, emails, phone-a-thons and grant applications.
“We start building relationships with students and their families as soon as they arrive on campus, and we are very fortunate that our faculty and staff provide an excellent experience that carries on after graduation,” Keynes said. “Our goal is to develop lifelong engagement between our alumni and the college through events, magazine articles and web content that keeps them informed about what goes on here.”
Keynes said that in recent years the school has been successful in meeting its fundraising targets.
“When we consistently do all these steps very well, we get great support from our donors,” Keynes said.
In part due to this most recent successful fundraising effort, the college’s endowment now exceeds $1 billion (to be more specific, $1,052,000,000). As a comparison, the University of Vermont, which enrolls four times as many undergraduates, has an endowment of $422 million.
Middlebury ranks fifth in endowment among New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) schools, behind Williams and Amherst colleges and Tufts and Wesleyan universities.