The Ever Elon Campaign concluded in December, but its effects will be felt for generations to come. Learn more about this impact and see a visual breakdown of how the campaign funds will be used to advance the university.
More than 28,000 members of the Elon community made history by supporting Ever Elon: The Campaign for the Future of Our University. The five-year campaign concluded on Dec. 31, 2011, yet the impact will be felt for generations to come.
Click here for a graphic representation of the campaign’s success and reach.
Ever Elon was historic in many ways. It was the largest fundraising campaign in the university’s history, raising $107.4 million and surpassing the $100 million goal. It also was the first to focus primarily on building the university’s endowment to fund additional scholarships, to further develop outstanding faculty and to support Elon’s renowned engaged learning programs such as study abroad.
The results are extraordinary. Through their gifts, donors created more than 250 endowments, including need- and talent-based scholarships, professorships to help Elon attract top faculty scholars and endowments to increase access to international study, internships, service learning, leadership and undergraduate research, life-changing opportunities that are the hallmarks of an Elon education. New need-based scholarship endowments included the campaign’s largest single commitment, and the largest in Elon’s history, a major gift from Furman Moseley ’56 and his wife, Susan, to establish the Susan Scholars to help women of promise. Ever Elon also continued the transformation of Elon’s beautiful campus, adding new academic buildings and centers, and facilities for Phoenix athletics.
Impressive gains were made in annual giving and planned, or deferred, giving, which represented 26 percent and 21 percent, respectively, of the campaign total. Annual gifts fund critical operations of the university, while estate and other planned gifts build a vital pipeline of resources to secure Elon’s future. Planned gifts played a major role in the $5.1 million raised to support faculty.
Yet campaigns are more than just numbers. They are about the lives that are transformed through philanthropy and the alumni, parents, faculty, staff and friends who make that transformation possible.
Campaigns come and go, but Elon’s needs continue and will require the ongoing support of the entire campus community. Building on the Ever Elon momentum, the university will continue to raise funds as it does every year to support strategic priorities.
“Through Ever Elon we have seen the power of philanthropy to transform this extraordinary university,” says President Leo M. Lambert. “Our community understands in new and powerful ways the vital role that private support must play in Elon’s future. We have ambitious aspirations, and I am firmly convinced that together we will take Elon to new heights and toward recognition as one of the nation’s great universities.”
By Jaleh Hagigh, director of advancement communications