A Voluntary Support of Education survey ranked Dartmouth as the fourth highest charitable donation contributor per student from private research institutions, VSE survey director Ann Kaplan said. The results of survey, which were released last Wednesday, revealed that Dartmouth raised over $250 million in charitable donations in fiscal year 2014, a 56 percent increase from the previous year’s $160 million in donations.
The survey, conducted by the Council for Aid to Education, revealed that the College is part of a national trend of increasing donations in private research institutions for the year of 2014. According to this year’s survey results, colleges and universities raised a historic high of $37.45 billion.
The survey found that donations to colleges and universities in the United States increased 10.8 percent in 2014, amounting to the largest gain in voluntary support since 2000, when college donations increased by 13.7 percent.
Kaplan said that Dartmouth has been a strong contributor to the rise in donations and that the College averages $40,000 per current student in contributions, which is higher than the $11,000 dollar per student average found in other institutions categorized as private research institutions.
The majority of donations made to the College came from donor-advised funds, she said, with the second, third and fourth contributors being alumni, foundations and student contributions, respectively.
Kaplan said student contributions amounted to $120,000 of the total $250 million donated.
Alumni Council president Lou Spelios ’95 said that he was not surprised to hear that alumni were amongst the highest contributors, especially since Dartmouth alumni have a strong commitment to remaining involved with the College and supporting the College’s efforts to improve the lives of students and transform the community.
“I think having a continued high confidence for the institution and the institution’s beliefs has inspired the alumni to continue to give generously,” he said.
Spelios said that he believes the College has done a great job keeping alumni informed about the projects it is pursuing. He added that he believes that Dartmouth alumni are unique because the majority of them retain a strong sense of pride and connection to the College at a level that he feels to be unprecedented in comparison to other institutions.
In 2014 the College received pledges for $287.2 million in philanthropic donations, which included an individual pledge of $100 million, the largest individual pledge in College history.
The Dartmouth College Fund reported to the Huffington Post last year that the College had received donations from nearly 42.8 percent of the alumni population.
Bruce Miller ’74, the College Fund committee chair, said that he attributes the success of the College’s donations to the generous alumni. He added that the efforts to raise donations are both College and class initiatives.
Miller said that this past year the Class of 1989 donated eight million dollars, which broke records in class donations. He added, however, that although the College has continued to break donation records due to the efforts of groups such as the Centennial Circle — a group of Dartmouth female alumni that have gathered more than 100 women to pledge at least $100,000 each — the College has experienced declined alumni participation.
The Council for Aid to Education reports that this year’s alumni participation declined from 8.7 percent in fiscal year 2013 to 8.3 percent in fiscal year 2014. Dartmouth alumni are donating more each, but less alumni overall are donating.
Miller added that despite the decline in alumni participation, the College still ranked as the Ivy League school with the second highest alumni participation rate, trailing only behind Princeton.
“Dartmouth is blessed with a generous alumni body that truly cares about the institution,” Miller said.
He said that the College ranks nationally in the top “handful” of institutions with high yield of alumni participation.
