This is a milestone year for our medical school in many ways, one of which is the success we experienced in our fundraising during fiscal year 2018. Please join with us in celebrating an outstanding accomplishment by our development team and their partners.
Last fiscal year, the medical school benefited from more than $42 million in philanthropic giving. That’s the second best year in the school’s current campaign, and in its history. This is due in great part to our alumni body who has stepped up in unprecedented ways during the course of this campaign. We took advantage of every opportunity and exceeded the medical school’s FY18 $30 million goal by 40 percent.
This remarkable year is also due to strong partnerships that the medical school development team has forged with the teams at VCU Health and the MCV Foundation, as well as with our own dedicated faculty. This kind of momentous work can only be done through collaboration.
As a result, we’re also marking another important milestone: we are 80 percent of the way to the medical school’s goal in our ongoing $300 million fundraising campaign. And since the School of Medicine is the top driver in the success of the Make It Real Campaign for VCU, this means good things for the university’s overall $750 million goal as we look toward our 2020 campaign finish line.
A successful campaign translates to great things for the students, faculty and programs in our school. It is vital to sustaining our core values of cultivating a life-changing learning experience for students and trainees, exceptional care for the sick, and a curiosity for medical research and discovery.
While this year is marked by great success, we have our sights set for even greater things. That’s going to take even more partnership – from all of us. For those of you who have worked with our development office in their fundraising efforts, thank you. In the coming months many of you are going to hear more from Mr. Tom Maness, Chief Development Officer, about more ways to partner with our development team so that we can reach our full potential, including philanthropy training for us, which will help all of us develop and hone this important skill set. By garnering the highest level of philanthropy possible, we can truly enable our vision to become a reality.
Again, we could not be more grateful for your help in reaching this milestone. Congratulations and thanks to all of our development team for this mighty successful year. Our heartfelt thanks also goes to each and every one of the 3,849 donors who made a gift to the medical school last fiscal year – many of you are among them. We are on the cusp of new and exciting opportunities to partner together in supporting our stellar students, our remarkable faculty, and our great medical school.
With every good wish to you and yours,
Peter F. Buckley, M.D.
Dean, VCU School of Medicine
Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs, VCU Health System