Anyone know what the final campaign raise was and the current endowment figure? I’m pretty sure the campaign officially concluded on 6/30.
According to the alumni listserv, a “close to being finalized” report is making the rounds even as we speak. One factoid that has been leaked: 103 donors contributed a minimum of $1 million each and only $20 million of the total is going toward construction. Virtually everything else is going toward strengthening the endowment.
@circuitrider , the goal if I’m not mistaken was $400 M, which I’ve been told they exceeded by a healthy margin, and that most was going to the endowment, specifically for financial aid.
I saw that they had a challenge raise at the end, with an alumnus contributing $1M, comprised of $500 per gift in any amount, up to the cap.
^That’s correct. How much of that is in the form of pledged support and how much is already working capital, I don’t know, but, I expect the total to be well north of the original goal. There was a wrap party nearly a month ago with so many big donors they had to rent Grand Central Station to fit them all.
I see. Do you think this will bring their endowment number to a level more commensurate with that of schools like Middlebury, Bowdoin and Washington & Lee? Midd didn’t have a huge endowment for quite a long time but recently pulled away from Wesleyan and I believe broke the billion $ barrier.
I think absent some huge gift from Soros or the Louis-Dreyfus family, Wes will have a hard time ever catching Williams or Pomona, but joining the billion dollar endowment club seems to have some significance with people … certainly US News.
It will be interesting to see how close they come.
Also, by way of timing, they couldn’t have done better. Hamilton and Manuel-Miranda have really generated a lot of hype and attention … I’m sure it was easier to rally the troops to give this time than it has been in the past.
Fun fact: This was only Wesleyan’s third successful multi-year campaign since the end of WWII. The others were in 1986 and 2005.
Indeed - the lack of a capital campaign in the 1990’s during that impressive bull market is one of the primary reasons Wesleyan’s endowment fell so far behind its Little Three brethren. In the 1980’s, Wes was still running fairly even with Amherst and Williams with regards to endowment, but A and W pulled away in the 90’s…
$482 million is the grand total (off a campaign target of $400 million). Not too shabby
Beat it by almost $100 million. No, not too shabby at all.
I wonder where the endowment will end up. It appears they’ll easily clear $900 m, but whether they’ll hit the big “B” remains to be seen.
If only for symbolic reasons, I hope they funnel enough money to make it over a billion. Also, this year’s endowment return hasn’t been published yet, has it?
No, the return won’t be made public until at least October…
I assume when they say “vast majority for fin aid” that means endowment. My understanding is that very little is going to current spend.
We’ll be watching closely; D is considering Wes.
Considering college endowment returns this past fiscal year will be lucky to have a positive return, I’d be surprised to see Wes over $900 million…
@6/30/15 they were at 839 mm. I don’t know what the campaign generated in all of 2016, but the word is that in the last five days they received pledges of $30mm.
Unless their portfolio tanked I’d guess they’d be over 900 mm.