Record $181.4 million raised through campaign for North Carolina A&T State University

Bolstered by record alumni giving and 35 corporate and individual donations in excess of US$1 million – including a historic US$45 million gift from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott – North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University raised a record US$181.4 million in its recently completed 8-year capital campaign.

The total far surpassed both the Campaign for North Carolina A&T’s initial goal of US$85 million in 2019 and its stretch goal of US$100 million before concluding December 31, 2020. The campaign total is believed to be the largest ever raised by a public, historically Black university (HBCU), and elevates North Carolina A&T State University’s total assets under investment as of March 31, including endowment, to US$153 million, also the most of any public HBCU.

“More than 21,300 donors took a hard look at North Carolina A&T and invested in its promise and potential. Our students, faculty and academic programs earned those investments, and the total of that generosity is a reflection of the quality of this community of scholars,” said Chancellor Harold L. Martin Sr. “We are grateful for what this says about our university now, and excited about what it means for our future.”

Launched in 2012, the campaign began to truly hit its stride in financial year 2017, when it took in US$14.7 million. It has raised US$15 million in every financial year since, hitting US$18.1 million in financial year 2020 before exploding in the current financial year, in which it has already hit US$88 million (for FY 2021, only funds raised or pledged through December 31, 2020 were counted toward the campaign total).

The Scott gift – a rare, unrestricted donation announced in 2020 – has attracted significant attention, as one of the philanthropist’s two largest single grants in a US$410-million year of giving to HBCUs, part of her US$6 billion in total philanthropic contributions in 2020.

But it was far from the only sizable gift, as the US$35 million gifts illustrated. Funds raised by leading graduates, among 14,837 alumni givers overall, were responsible for making the Willie A. Deese College of Business and Economics and the John R. and Kathy R. Hairston College of Health and Human Sciences A&T’s first donor-named colleges. In all, alumni accounted for 70 percent of gifts to the campaign.

“It seems as though only yesterday, we were announcing the public phase of the campaign and hoping we might reach US$100 million,” said campaign co-chair Royall Mack. “The degree by which we exceeded that total is remarkable, but it is no accident. This is only the beginning of what is possible for North Carolina A&T, and I believe the coming years will bear that out emphatically.”

When A&T launched the campaign in financial year 2012, its endowment totaled US$28 million. Its combined investments now of US$153 million not only reflect the infusion of principal from the capital campaign, but the assets of the A&T Real Estate Foundation, created in recent years to manage the university’s growing land and property holdings.

Campaign donations were not only invested for long-term growth and income from the interest on those endowments, they were poured into current initiatives to support the university’s ambitious strategic plan goals and build on its very public growing momentum. Over the past two years, A&T has moved into the No. 1 national ranking in Money magazine’s annual “Best Colleges” issue, twice been ranked among U.S. News & World Report’s top National Universities, extended its tenure as America’s largest HBCU to a 7th consecutive year and won national championships in football and track.

Among the new and current initiatives already being supported by campaign gifts:

• The February One scholarships, merit-based awards named in honor of the legendary North Carolina A&T State University 4 civil rights activists of 1960. The first class of February One scholars has been admitted this spring for Fall 2021.
• Two-hundred seventy additional new scholarship funds, many of them supporting multiple awards, in colleges and departments across the university, as well as university-wide student awards.
• New centers of excellence in product design and advanced manufacturing, cybersecurity, entrepreneurship, health and human sciences, education and the liberal arts. The latter 3 are wholly new centers being established in the wake of the campaign’s conclusion.
• Investments in new faculty related to the university’s research mission who typically require start-up funding for laboratory needs, computing infrastructure, graduate student support and more.
• Visibility initiatives for programs and disciplines of critical strategic importance to the university’s growth and development as a comprehensive land-grant institution and doctoral research university with high activity, as classified by the Carnegie Foundation.

“Over the past 130 years, North Carolina A&T has developed as a university through serious individual and collective commitment, often charting success despite the availability of public and private investments rather than because of them,” said Willie A. Deese, campaign co-chair. “The funds raised in this campaign are making possible a great many things that some longstanding research universities may take for granted, and the excitement around that makes its own mighty contribution to the success and momentum of our university.

“This campaign has shown us the future of A&T, and it is very bright, indeed.”

About North Carolina A&T State University: North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (also known as North Carolina A&T State University), is a historically black land-grant research university in Greensboro, North Carolina. It is a constituent institution of the University of North Carolina System. Founded by the North Carolina General Assembly on March 9, 1891, as the Agricultural and Mechanical College for the Colored Race, it is the second college established under the provisions of the Morrill Act of 1890, and the first for people of color in the state of North Carolina. Initially, the college offered instruction in agriculture, English, horticulture, and mathematics.
In 1967, the college was designated a Regional University by the North Carolina General Assembly and renamed North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.

With an enrollment of over 12,000 students, North Carolina A&T State University is the largest historically black university in the U.S. – a position it has held since 2014. The university is also well recognized for its degree program in engineering. The university’s College of Engineering has consistently ranked first in the nation for the number of degrees awarded to African Americans at undergraduate level, and is a leading producer of African American engineers with master’s and doctoral degrees. Likewise, its College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences produces more African American agricultural graduates than any campus in the country. The university is also a leading producer of African American kinesiology undergraduates, landscape architects and journalism/mass communication graduates. The university offers 54 undergraduate, 29 master’s, and 9 doctoral degrees through its 8 colleges, one school and one joint school. The university awards more than 1,900 degrees annually, and has an alumni base around 55,000 in numbers. As of 2019, the university conducts over US$64.3 million in academic and scientific research annually, and operates 20 research centers and institutes on campus. The university’s designation as a land grant institution reflects its broad range of research with ongoing projects funded by agencies such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health, and the National Science Foundation

Source: North Carolina A&T State University