This week, The University of Texas at Austin broke its all-time record for fundraising. With the help of alumni and friends, corporations and foundations, UT has raised more money in the current fiscal year than in any previous year — $396 million. And with three weeks left in the fiscal year, we may well break the previous record of $366 million (2007-08) by an even wider margin.

I’m so proud of our alumni, more than 49,000 of whom have given so far this year. I’m also grateful to the more than 35,500 individuals who are not alumni but have put their money on UT Austin, betting that we can change the world. In addition, we couldn’t have done it without the 2,629 corporations and record 304 foundations that have invested in us this year. I’m also very proud of our outstanding development staff, whose hard work and dedication brings more than a $1 million on average to the University every business day.

These record-level gifts will directly benefit our students, support game-changing research, and help us make UT Austin the top public research university in the nation.

Large gifts have made a huge difference. And this year they have included pledges of $50 million from the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation for the Dell Medical School and $25 million from Terry and Robert Rowling for a new graduate education building for the McCombs School of Business. But more than 90 percent of gifts were for less than $1,000. In addition, a record 208 individuals included a gift to UT Austin in their estate plans, totaling $76 million, the highest annual amount during the current campaign and the second-highest annual amount in UT history.

While we all should be immensely proud of this accomplishment, it’s not time to celebrate yet. The fact is, we need one more record year.

Seven years ago, we set a capital campaign goal three times larger than anything attempted before, $3 billion. The economy crashed, and headwinds rose up, but we kept our heading and forged ahead, and we now have raised about $2.2 billion. We are within striking distance of our goal, but before we can claim victory we will need one more extraordinary year, an effort that dwarfs anything we have seen so far. I know this is possible, and I ask every alumnus, friend, and fan of The University of Texas to be a part. If you have given before, please give again. If you haven’t given yet, join the team and be a part of this epic effort. Go to http://giving.utexas.edu/campaign/ and make a gift today.

We can do this. Let’s make history together.