Tower Talk

President Bill Powers on the Life of The University of Texas

40 Hours for Forty Acres a huge success

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40forforty

Visiting with Camp Texas leaders helping with our 40-hour fundraiser

 

Last week, we set a goal of raising $40,000 in 40 hours for UT Austin. I’m happy to report that at the end of 40 hours, students and alumni had joined together to more than triple our goal, raising $128,516. Supported by social media and other channels, this was the most successful web-based fundraiser we have ever had.

On Friday, during the 40-hour campaign, I visited Gregory Gym to check the progress. There I met dozens of students from groups like Texas Blazers, Umoja, and Camp Texas who were raising money for UT and promoting their groups.

I’m so proud of our students and all of our alumni and friends who participated in this first-of-its-kind fundraiser. If you missed the event and would still like to give please visit this page.

What starts here changes the world.

Bill's Signature

Let’s make history, together.

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VYGoal

 

It’s time for some straight talk. Today, we open the final chapter of this great undertaking we call the Campaign for Texas. We have one year left in an eight-year fundraising campaign, and we have reached 75 percent of our goal. It doesn’t take a UT mathematician to figure out that it’s crunch time.

Seven years ago, when my team and I set the goal at $3 billion, we knew we were taking a risk. But I also knew something else — that we’re Longhorns, and that Longhorns are a different breed. I knew that the bond between UT alumni and their alma mater is powerful — that alumni and friends have risen to meet one audacious challenge after another and have done whatever it took to keep this a university of the first class. I believed then — and I absolutely believe now — that we can do this, and that we will.

I can say it no more plainly: UT needs you, and it needs you now.

If you have given before, thank you, and please give again. If you haven’t given yet, join the team and be a part of this historic effort. Please watch this short video (that is sure to bring back a happy memory), then go to http://giving.utexas.edu/homestretch/ and make a gift today.

I know we can do this. Let’s make history, together.

Bill's Signature

UT Austin raising funds at historic pace

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Campus scenes 2012 McCombs, Union, Tower and flowers

 

The University of Texas at Austin has raised more than $300 million from donors during the current fiscal year, which does not end until Aug. 31. If it continues at the current pace, UT Austin will have its best fundraising year in history, surpassing the $366 million it raised in 2008.

I’m so grateful to our alumni and friends for the strategic investments they are making in UT Austin, and I’m very proud of the fundraising team we have in place that is succeeding so dramatically during these still-challenging economic times. I know we can reach our goal, and when we do, those funds will fuel UT’s ascent to the top tier of global public higher education.

Highlights of this year’s efforts include:

  • UT Austin has raised $302 million year-to-date compared with $222 million at this point last year.
  • The amount of total alumni giving year-to-date has virtually doubled, from approximately $87 million to $174 million.
  • Gifts from estates have increased year-to-date by more than 150 percent, the result of increased efforts to encourage planned gifts when supporters write their wills.
  • UT Austin has collected more than $1 million, on average, every business day in donations.
  • The University has received more than 123,000 gifts made this fiscal year.

Major gifts and pledges contributing to this year’s success have included:

  • $50 million from the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation for the creation of the Dell Medical School at UT Austin
  • $25 million from the Robert Rowling Family toward the construction of a new building for graduate studies at the McCombs School of Business
  • Five estate gifts of $5 million or more

The numbers bode well for the “Campaign for Texas,” the University’s ambitious $3 billion, eight-year capital campaign. Only two other public universities in the United States are attempting to raise $3 billion, the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Virginia.

To date, UT Austin has raised more than $2.1 billion for the campaign. Before the “Campaign for Texas,” the most successful capital campaign in the state was UT Austin’s “We’re Texas” campaign of the late 1990s, which raised $1.6 billion.

Thank you, and Hook ’em Horns!

Bill's Signature

New video for Campaign for Texas

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I want to share with you an impressive new video that celebrates the immense impact the campaign is already having on our students, faculty, and campus. It also celebrates your generosity. The video makes it clear that now, more than ever, the world needs Texas. I hope it’s yet another reason for you to take pride in your university. Share it with your friends.

Campaign for Texas video

Thanks for watching, and for your continued support of UT.

Hook ’em Horns,

Bill's Signature

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