College giving increases at Nazareth, SUNY Brockport
Charitable donations to Nazareth College increased 6.7 percent in the 2014-15 school year, boosted by fundraising for a new institute that gives undergraduates clinical experience in physical, occupational, speech, art and music therapies.
The $458,000 increase — from $6.87 million to $7.33 million — was reported in the annual Voluntary Support for Education survey released last week by the Council for Aid to Education.
The survey also showed giving increased 21.4 percent at The College at Brockport from $3.37 million to $4.1 million while charitable donations declined at the University of Rochester, the Rochester Institute of Technology and Hobart and William Smith Colleges.
Local colleges get $4.3 million
About $3.5 million of Nazareth’s 2014-2015 donations was targeted for the York Wellness and Rehabilitation Institute that opened in September at a total cost of $16.5 million.
The institute is expected to provide therapy services to 500 Rochester-area residents annually, said Kelly Gagan, Nazareth’s vice president for institutional advancement.
“Generally, what we are looking for is people who don’t have the resources to pay for therapy,’’ she said. The students who provide the therapy, meanwhile, acquire clinical experience without having to leave the campus.
The College at Brockport concluded a fundraising campaign last June with donations surpassing the goal by $1 million, according to Michael Andriatch, vice president for advancement. "A few six-figure gifts, including an estate gift and a large anonymous gift, came in during the final fiscal year to put us over the top,'' Andriatch said in a statement.
Donations to other Rochester-area colleges and universities also often rise or fall based on major capital campaigns or large individual donations.
The $108.2 million received by the University of Rochester in 2014-15 came a year after donations swelled to $120 million with the help of a $10 million gift from the Wegman Family Charitable Foundation for a new Institute for Data Science.
Last year marked the second consecutive year the university received more than $100 million in cash gifts, said Thomas Farrell, senior vice president for advancement. He described 2014-15 as “another remarkable year of philanthropy,’’ adding that it marked “the greatest donor participation numbers in our history.’’
Giving Back: How Philanthropy Enables Innovation
The university ranked fourth in the state in donations for 2014-15.
“Our capital campaign, set to conclude in June, has exceeded its $1.2 billion goal — generating more than $200 million for scholarships and financial aid and $650 million to support our world-class medical center,’’ Farrell said. “So far, 2016 is continuing this positive trend as we are on track to meet or exceed our fundraising goals again this fiscal year.”
The Rochester Institute of Technology saw its charitable donations dip to $27.32 million in 2014-15 from $28.07 million the year before, a 2.7 percent decline.
Donations to Hobart and William Smith Colleges dropped by more than half — from $20.22 million to $9.89 million. The schools ended a capital campaign in 2012 that raised $205 million, spokeswoman Catherine Williams said.
“During the 2014-15 fiscal year, we saw the largest number of donors to the colleges in nine years,’’ she said in an email. “With that momentum and with four months remaining in our 2015-2016 giving cycle, we are outpacing last year's gifts by 17% and have secured more than $17.5 million in new commitments.’’
Earlier this month, Hobart and William Smith Colleges celebrated the opening of a $28.5 million performing arts center.
Elsewhere, Monroe Community College received $4.47 million in donations, a 9.6 percent drop from the $4.94 million it received the year before.
Statewide, more than half of the $2.66 billion in charitable donations reported by 105 of New York’s universities, four-year colleges and community colleges went to three universities in 2014-15.
Cornell, Columbia and NYU received $1.58 billion, ranking them among the top 20 beneficiaries of philanthropy to higher education nationally, said the Council for Aid to Education report.
The $590.6 million received by Cornell ranked No. 5 nationally behind Stanford ($1.63 billion), Harvard ($1.05 billion), the University of Southern California ($653.03 million) and the University of California-San Francisco ($608.58 million).
Cornell’s donations rose $44.5 million — or about 8 percent — from $546.1 million a year earlier. Major donations to Cornell announced last year included a $100 million gift from Bloomberg Philanthropies to help fund construction of the Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island in the East River adjacent to Manhattan, and a $50 million gift for the Cornell Department of Biomedical Engineering from Cornell graduates Nancy and Peter Meinig along with their three daughters.
Columbia’s donations increased 17.6 percent to $552.7 million last year from $469.9 million.
NYU’s charitable donations fell 3.5 percent to $439.7 million from $455.7 million the year before.
Statewide donations to New York colleges and universities were 2 percent higher than the $2.61 billion received a year earlier.
Nationally, charitable donations increased 7.6 percent. The top 20 fundraising universities received 28.7 percent of the total.
btumulty@gannett.com
Twitter: @NYinDC