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From time to time I see that a certain college in NW Ark raised ungodly sums of money each year via their "Foundation", so it got me wondering what our numbers look like. You will find UCA's end of year assets below, and I was able to find that ASU's was in the same ballpark as us, with $40,289,364 Assets at the end of 2011. So couple things that I am wondering:

-What happened between 2005 & 2006 that was so successfull? can we repeat it, or was it an alumni passing and leaving a fortune behind?

-Should we be happy with the fact that we are ahead of a Sun Belt School?

-The NW Ark school clearly states they are raising money for one thing or another, so would it be helpfull if we put up signs/webpages showing what we are raising money for? Things like pictures of a new science building, or Hyper addition, much like NW Ark is doing with pictures of new stadium.




UCA Foundation assets, reported fiscal year end, are as follows:

1982 .............................................. $ 337,905
1983 .............................................. $ 420,570
1984 .............................................. $ 463,006
1985 .............................................. $ 533,617
1986 .............................................. $ 500,646
1987 .............................................. $ 530,872
1988 .............................................. $ 619,373
1989 .............................................. $ 971,598
1990 .............................................. $ 1,408,735
1991 .............................................. $ 2,124,357
1992 .............................................. $ 2,388,786
1993 .............................................. $ 3,137,364
1994 .............................................. $ 5,375,867
1995 .............................................. $ 5,799,374
1996 .............................................. $ 6,034,758
1997 .............................................. $ 6,618,147
1998 .............................................. $ 7,243,021
1999............................................... $ 8,470,536
2000............................................... $ 9,430,105
2001.............................................. $10,178,056
2002.............................................. $10,798,722
2003.............................................. $11,970,150
2004.............................................. $13,859,571
2005.............................................. $17,959,821
2006.............................................. $31,973,582
2007.............................................. $34,084,225
2008.............................................. $34,991,889
2009.............................................. $33,783,437
2010.............................................. $43,954,302
2011.............................................. $45,331,699

WOW...I thought UCA was broke and there is 45 mil in the kitty.

The University made significant steps forward in 2009/2010/2011 both with their internal finances and fundraising. Lets hope we continue to build on these improvements and we seek to move toward reaching our potential. We've built a strong base over the last few years, now we just need to keep focus.

1. UCA did not do a fund raising (or "capital campaign") until 2008..that is 100 years after our founding....the UCA Foundation would accept donations offered (actually we would occasionally get a large check out of the blue) or make some direct request for some smaller projects......

2. The "quiet phase" of the Centennial Campaign started in 2006 and there may have been some nice donations.....however, as I recall the Foundation bought Bear Village about that time which added significantly to assets.... purchased funded by borrowings....this is not uncommon for universities to use in financing new student housing.... I am not sure about the 2010 era increase but we have had some nice gifts in the past couple of years.....plus our investment portfolio has done reasonably well.....

3. Note that list shown below is probably "assets" only and does not include any liabilities.........other than the Bear Village debt, there should not be many other liabilities........also, most of the funds in the Foundation are donor restricted and can only be used for the intended purpose (e.g., money in The Sched Fund can only be used for a future Honors College project to honor Norb...many other examples)

4. The Development staff has made MAJOR strides over the past past 5-6 years in its organizing of efforts and nurturing of donors.....lots of ideas on how to raise money.....email Shelley Mehl at UCAF is you have any ideas.....just a note...professional fund raisers recommend that 50% of the total need to come from one donor, 25% to come from two donors and the other 25% from smaller gifts.....so to raise $1,000,000 you need $500,000 from one, $250,000 each from two others and $250,000 from all others......that is pretty much what happens....

5. It's not whether we have more than a Sun Belt school, the question is what is the school's donor profile and resources....UCA is just now after 100+ years to the point of having a large enough and well off enough alumni base to raise real money.....we should be targeting to reach at least $100 million in a another 5-6 years but the economy is going to have to give us some help.....