Annual Fund Crucial to School's Operation
Giving to the Annual Fund is of increasing importance to the McCombs School. Because UT's share of state funding continues to dwindle, we now rely on private gifts as much as other highly-ranked schools, either private or public. The graph above illustrates the importance of private sector gifts, which make up almost a third of the McCombs School's annual budget. Through private gifts, such as those received via the Annual Fund, we can help bridge the funding gap not covered by tuition and fees and declining state appropriations.
Annual Fund gifts are by nature unrestricted in use, meaning they can be allocated by the dean to areas of greatest need within the School. Because they are immediately available, these current-use gifts have the same present impact as endowments many times larger-for example, a one-time gift of $5,000 is roughly equivalent to one year of disbursements from a $100,000 endowed fund.
Without exception, leading business schools have significant alumni giving percentages, meaning that a large number of their alumni choose to support their schools financially each year. Compared to these peer schools, the McCombs School lags in alumni giving, with an average of 10% alumni participation in the past few years. At top public schools such as UCLA, Michigan and Virginia, percentages are much higher (up to 35%) and at most top private schools higher still (as high as 60% at Dartmouth, for example).
Such high percentages indicate strong alumni support and a confidence in the direction of the school, and ultimately represent a solid strategic resource for excellence at these schools. These percentages are also a factor in highly-visible academic rankings, such as U.S. News and World Report's annual ranking, further reinforcing the high profile of these top schools.
Thus, alumni giving percentage is a concrete and widely accepted measure of the satisfaction a school's graduates feel, both in their on-campus experience and in their standing as alumni. We realize that, with the challenges posed by our size and the great diversity of student experience, we will be hard-pressed to reach the stratospheric giving levels of some smaller institutions with a more homogeneous base of alumni. However, we believe that the strong satisfaction our students and alumni feel is not adequately represented in our current Annual Fund giving.
Just as our alumni can rely on the vast network of some 70,000-plus fellow graduates for personal career development, we can and must draw on the aggregate strength of our alumni, and to do so we must promote the lifetime value of a McCombs education.
What is the McCombs School doing to merit the continued confidence of our donors and alumni?
As part of our efforts to deliver the best possible business education, our academic programs and operations are undergoing a thorough peer review in order to focus our attention on areas that can most benefit. We continue to deliver strong "residual value" to our alumni, from the favorable recognition we receive from rankings to the ever-growing professional network of fellow graduates. And we are focused on our mission of giving our students the tools to build strong economies, here and abroad.
Every gift to the Annual Fund supports our efforts, and builds a foundation of ready resources that helps fund continued improvements in academics, operations, faculty research, facilities, and all the myriad ways we deliver value and excellence to our varied constituents.
As noted above, participation is as important as the amount you give, so please consider a gift of any size to the McCombs School Annual Fund today. Learn about the many ways to support the school (including convenient online giving) at
http://www.bus.utexas.edu/development.
For information on specific programs at the McCombs School, consult our contacts page. For media information, contact the Communications Director by phone at 512-471-3314 or by email at CommunicationsDirector@mccombs.utexas.edu.
