Emory $1.6B Campaign to be First of Many

By Odette Yousef

Atlanta, GA – Emory University is halfway to its ambitious goal of raising one-point-six BILLION dollars by the year 2012. The University publicly announced the campaign Thursday evening, and according to Emory President James Wagner, this will be the first of many, more frequent, campaigns to come.

Emory's last campaign wrapped up in 1994 and this one only started in 2005. Since it had been so long, Wagner says Emory needed three years to raise money before going public, when most schools just take two:

WAGNER: We did that extra year in part because we don't have the sort of running track record in modern times to let us know the campaign goal that we should have been pursuing.

Now that Emory's raised more than $800 million in three years, it's feeling a lot better about raising the other half over the next four. And Wagner says the University expects more frequent fundraisers:

WAGNER: Once you reach campaign goals it's quite common to take a breather for a short period of years, maybe 3 years or so, and pick it up and do it again, rather than downsize your fundraising operation and then build it again.

The campaign will help fund student scholarships and fellowships, endowed professorships, and certain departments.