Northwestern University has launched the public phase of its $3.75 billion campaign, dubbed “We Will.” The school has already secured $1.52 billion during the quiet phase, which launched in 2011. The target is more than double Northwestern’s last campaign, which raised $1.55 billion from 1998 to 2003.
“This monumental campaign seeks to amplify Northwestern’s local and global impact –in everything from breakthrough research discoveries to innovations in creative expression to preparing the global leaders of tomorrow,” said the university’s President Morton Schapiro via a statement.
The campaign has four broad targets:
- Discovery and Creativity ($1.2 billion): a new biomedical research building for the Chicago campus, upgrades to the Kellogg School of Management, and endowment for the Institute for Sustainability and Energy, and an endowment for the International Institute for Nanotechnology.
- Student Experience ($1.163 billion): Increase in financial aid and the establishment of new scholarships, graduate student fellowships and University Career Services.
- Campus and Community ($1.162 billion): a new athletic and recreation center, a new visitors center and a new music and communication building for the Evanston campus, and a renovation of the Evanston campus’s Deering Library.
- Global Connections ($225 million): More scholarships for international students, and an expansion of study abroad programs, the Northwestern Academy for Chicago Public Schools and the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures.
“We now have an opportunity to use (Northwestern’s) considerable strengths to help solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges and prepare our remarkable students to be the visionary leaders that the world needs,” said Schapiro.
The campaign has so far received donations from 85,832 donors, with a goal of 140,995 donors for the entire campaign. Alumni Mark and Kimbra Walters made a $40 unrestricted gift, which the university intends to put toward Northwestern Athletics and Recreation, as well as scholarships for the law school. The Querrey Simpson Charitable Foundation has made $25 million worth of gifts for nanotechnology in regenerative medicine. Northwestern will rename the Institute for BioNanotechnology in Medicine the Louis A. Simpson and Kimberly K. Querrey Institute of BioNanotechnology in Medicine.
Other major gifts include $15 million from the Robert R. McCormick Foundation for scholarships, journalism and surgery for wounded veterans, and a $7.5 million gift from the Shaw family for graduate fellowships in the Program in Plant Biology and Conservation.
According to a spokesman, the campaign will wrap up in 2019. For more information, visit wewill.northwesern.edu.
