Auburn University Strategic Plan

Priority 6: Building Financial Resources
The Auburn University System will continue to dramatically expand our endowment, annual fund, and gifts to the University to support academic excellence and increased scholarships.

Initiative 1: Implement a new capital campaign.

GOAL 56: Auburn University will begin implementing plans for the next comprehensive fund raising campaign in spring 2012.

"Plans for our next capital campaign will be developed by April 2009. As part of that planning, we will perform a lessons-learned review of the recently-completed "It Begins At Auburn" campaign, identifying the reasons underlying successes as well as potential improvement opportunities.  The campaign should increase new professorships as described in other sections of this plan.

The campaign will also include a goal for a substantial increase in student scholarships. On the Auburn campus, our goal will be 7,000 students with an average scholarship of $5,000 annually. The goal will be 200 students on the Montgomery campus. Increasing student scholarship has been endorsed by the Auburn University SGA through passage of a resolution in the Student Senate.

Finally, the campaign should include a new fundraising category for unrestricted funds, producing $500,000 available annually to provide discretionary funds for departments, colleges and schools."

Summary of Progress Achieved:

• Plans for the next comprehensive campaign are in process and are expected to be completed in Fall 2011. A campaign readiness assessment was conducted by campaign consultants, Bentz Whaley Flessner (Minneapolis, MN) in 2010-11 with a full report presented to various university volunteer boards, deans, vice presidents and others on June 24, 2011. The report recommended that the campaign leadership phase began mid-2012 with a campaign goal to be announced in 2012.
• The scholarship campaign continues to raise endowment dollars to enhance the Spirit of Auburn Scholarships with a goal of $15 million by December 2011. As of 5/31/11, $4.1 million has been raised or 27% of the goal.