NEWS RELEASE, 8/6/97 UC Berkeley receives record number of gifts in 12 months, netting $182.4 million

by Jose Rodriguez

Berkeley -- Gifts totaling $182.4 million were raised by the University of California at Berkeley in the 1996-97 fiscal year ending June 30, representing the greatest number of contributions in a single year, Chancellor Robert M. Berdahl announced Wednesday (8/6/97). This brings the amount raised by UC Berkeley in its current fund-raising campaign to $638 million. The Campaign for the New Century has a goal of raising $1.1 billion for students and faculty by the start of the year 2001. "It's enormously gratifying to walk into this university as the new chancellor and see the groundwork of this fund-raising campaign so well laid," said Berdahl, who in July became the campus's eighth chancellor. "The stakes are high in this campaign. If Berkeley is to remain the preeminent public university in the land and secure its place as the academic institution of the Pacific Rim, we must continue building on the foundation of private support by alumni and friends. These totals are a wonderful sign of success so far." The total amount raised is the second-highest ever for the university and represents 66,600 individual gifts, the record for any year. (The largest amount raised, $188.9 million, was last year.) University officials said this reflects a greater emphasis by UC Berkeley to encourage more individuals to give to the campus‹a strategy that favors more participation by alumni and friends, regardless of the size of gifts. "The number of gifts made to Cal is as significant at this stage of our fund-raising campaign as the actual total raised," said Vice Chancellor C. D. Mote, Jr. "Participation is key to our success in building a new tradition of private giving to UC Berkeley. The record number of gifts raised means that we're getting our message across on the need to support Cal more and more to our alumni and friends around the world." The rate of giving by alumni also will help reverse historically low levels of participation, which has been hovering at around 10 percent of all alumni. A new calculation of alumni participation, which is a factor in college rankings by some publications, such as U.S. News & World Report, is forthcoming. Included in the 1996-97 gift totals are: o $10 million from the Richard & Rhoda Goldman Fund for the Graduate School of Public Policy, which now bears the Goldman name. This is on top of gifts totaling $7 million earlier in the campaign for distinguished professorships in the College of Letters and Science, renovations to Edwards Stadium, and support for the Incentive Awards Program. Richard N. Goldman, a 1941 Cal alumnus, and his late wife, Rhoda, a 1946 Cal alumna, are among the most generous donors to the Campaign for the New Century. o $5.8 million estate distribution from the Bernie H. and Frances H. Williams Trust Fund. It is designated for the Chancellor's Millennium Fund, the campus's discretionary pool of money designed to address campus needs swiftly. The funds can meet such needs as pilot programs in undergraduate education, research and faculty support in developing fields and student safety patrols, for instance. o $5.5 million from the Bernard Osher Foundation to secure an endowment for the Incentive Awards Program, one of the campus's model outreach efforts to high schools. It also allowed the program to expand from San Francisco, where it was established in 1992, to serve seven Oakland and Berkeley high schools. In honor of these leadership gifts, the project was named the Osher Foundation Incentive Awards Program for San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley. o $4 million from Jean Gray Hargrove for a new music library. A 1935 Cal alumna, Hargrove is a concert pianist and long-time patron of the arts. The Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library will serve students, music scholars, composers and performers into the next century, and is the cornerstone of a $10 million drive for extensive, updated music library and performance facilities. UC Berkeley launched its campaign publicly in September 1996, following a period of "quiet" fund raising to test the climate for giving by alumni and friends. The campaign is partly in response to the decline in state support for UC Berkeley in the last seven years. Direct state support, including contracts, now accounts for about 38 percent of Berkeley's budget, compared to 52 percent in 1985. The funds raised in the campaign, while not a substitute for lost state and federal funds, will build new programs on campus and help students and faculty in direct ways, by creating scholarships and professorships. They also help steer the campus toward a steadier fiscal course.

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