CEDAR FALLS — Just one year into the public portion of the University of Northern Iowa’s $250 million comprehensive fundraising campaign, the Cedar Falls campus already is most of the way to its goal — putting it more than two years ahead of schedule.

But UNI doesn’t plan to wrap its fundraising push early — before 2026, when the campaign’s finale is supposed to converge with UNI’s sesquicentennial — especially since unforeseen circumstances have added new projects and fundraising needs.

“The goal is certainly to exceed $250 (million),” UNI President Mark Nook told The Gazette, noting the campus hasn’t set a new specific goal. “We may in the future. But for now, we will run the campaign through June of 2026. And we’re using that because 2026 is our 150th anniversary.”

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When UNI went public with its “Our Tomorrow” campaign in October 2022 — focusing fundraising on four strategic pillars of student access and success; engaged learning; academic programs and faculty; and iconic spaces — the silent portion of the campaign, which started in 2018, already had raised $187.6 million from 24,843 donors.

“I’ve never had to sell anyone on the University of Northern Iowa,” campaign co-chair and UNI alumnus David Takes said in 2022. “Like so many who’ve graduated from UNI, this university made an enormous impact on my life, and I’m honored to play a role as we once again commit to preserving and expanding the quality of opportunities at UNI.”

Philanthropy has become increasingly important for Iowa’s public universities, as the slice of their funding pie from state appropriations has shrunk while the slice from tuition has swelled — even as more area high school graduates identify as low-income, minority or first-generation students who’ve identified rising prices as a potential deal-breaker for higher education.

The shifting demographics have Iowa’s public universities providing more financial aid, in part, to boost student numbers as a enrollment cliff driven by lower birthrates looms. That need is among the many forces driving an increased reliance on external funding in the form of grants and gifts.

“We want students, faculty and staff to have the proper resources to succeed,” University of Iowa President Barbara Wilson said last month when her campus unveiled its new $3 billion fundraising campaign. “And because more than one in five of our undergraduate students are the first in their families to attend college, I am passionate about providing additional support for first-generation Hawkeyes as they acclimate to campus life.”

Iowa State University two years ago announced it had exceeded an expanded $1.5 billion goal as part of its “Forever True, For Iowa State” fundraising campaign that, when announced in 2016, aimed to raise $1.1 billion by June 2020.

First named college

UNI’s “Our Tomorrow” campaign had raised $243 million from 27,000 donors as of early October, and in the 2023 budget year amassed a record-breaking $58.4 million in gifts from 9,402 donors — including 2,170 who gave for the first time.

That one-year giving total topped UNI’s previous record of $43.1 million in 2020-21 by 35 percent, according to UNI’s Office of University Relations.

“The past four years have been the highest fundraising years in the university’s history,” according to UNI University Relations, reporting more than $38.5 million in gifts supported UNI academic and curricular programs and nearly $12.3 million directly supported students in the form of 55 new scholarships.

In the new budget year, the campus announced its largest philanthropic commitment in school history: a $25 million pledge to the business college from 1970 UNI alumnus David W. Wilson.

The gift from Wilson — chair and chief executive officer of Wilson Automotive, among the nation’s largest private auto dealerships — has compelled UNI to, for the first time, name a college after a person.

The Board of Regents this month approved UNI’s newly christened David W. Wilson College of Business in recognition of the gift that Wilson in a statement said he hopes “will transform the university; transform the College of Business.”

“I’m hoping this gift will ensure students will learn to do things the right way,” he said.

Wilson in the 1990s made a gift to create the UNI “David W. Wilson Chair of Business Ethics” — a business college position focused solely on the discussion of how “moral and ethical beliefs of every business guides the values, decisions, and behavior of the individuals within it.”

That ethical concern is tied to his recent $25 million gift, too, according to UNI College of Business Dean Leslie Wilson. After committing $2 million to a type of “last-dollar” scholarship aimed at helping students cover remaining expenses, his donation will go toward innovation and ethics.

“The first primary area is expanding ethics education across campus, not just for our business students, but also for all of the students that graduate from UNI,” Dean Wilson said. “We will be working with the Department of Philosophy and world religions to do just that.”

The idea, she said, is to help students navigate the professional arena with wisdom, not just academic knowledge.

“In today’s world, we can fully expect that students will graduate and can be put in a situation where they will be faced with ethical dilemmas,” she said. “And it’s very important to the donor that students are prepared for that.”

The financial commitment also will support innovation and flexibility to experiment.

“So if faculty want to experiment with a new class, it gives us money so that I can hire an adjunct to backfill for that faculty,” Dean Wilson said. “As the world is very, very quickly changing, having some bandwidth for innovation is going to be really important to the long-term success of the college.”

Wrestling addition

Although UNI hasn’t named any other colleges after donors, it has christened buildings after those who made them happen — like the McLeod Center, built in 2004 after Clark and Mary McLeod in 2000 made what then was the largest gift in UNI history.

The McLeod’s $4 million donation supported construction of the athletics facility used for both men’s and women’s basketball, volleyball and wrestling. And Nook said his campus again is interested in securing “naming gifts” as they fundraising for a new dome topping the UNI Dome and a new wrestling facility. Structural concerns with UNI’s West Gym displaced the team earlier this year.

“Adding a new wrestling training facility to the Our Tomorrow campaign is part of our unwavering commitment to further elevate our wrestling program that competes in the Big 12 Conference,” Nook said. “We strongly support all our student-athletes at UNI, but the situation at the West Gym escalated to the point where a long-term solution is needed to keep our wrestling program thriving for years to come.”

Given the level of UNI wrestling and its popularity — finishing eighth in the nation in NCAA Division I dual meet attendance last season — Nook said top-notch facilities are imperative for recruiting.

“For athletic facilities, those have often come from private donors,” Nook said. “The UNI Dome was built with private funds. The McLeod Center was built with private funds. Even the Gallagher Bluedorn Performing Arts Center was built with private funds.”

Given UNI just added a new wrestling facility to its comprehensive campaign, administrators don’t yet have specific plans, a timeline or a budget for it.

‘Our Tomorrow’ by the numbers

As of Nov. 1:

27,597 total unique donors to the campaign, or 92 percent of the goal of 30,000 unique donors;

10,833 first-time donors, or 39 percent of all donors and 86 percent the toward goal of 12,500 new donors;

More than $243 million raised.

Source: UNI spokesman Pete Moris

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

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