The Campaign
Kinds of Gifts
Current Operational Needs
Bowdoin relies on unrestricted annual gifts to balance its budget and support expenditures in the current fiscal year, which ends June 30.
- These gifts provide financial aid, help keep faculty salaries competitive, fund research and special projects, and reduce reliance on tuition increases and endowment spending.
- Unrestricted giving represents 6% of the operating budget — but every dollar donated has the purchasing power of $20 in additional endowment spending.
- It would take $112 million in additional endowment to generate the funds provided by unrestricted gifts last year.
Endowment and Special Projects
One measure of Bowdoin's financial health is the College's ability to balance its operating budget while making major new capital investments in programs and facilities. The generosity of alumni and friends in establishing endowments and funding construction and renovation at Bowdoin over more than two centuries has been remarkable.
Endowment growth is crucial both to Bowdoin's immediate success and its long-term strength. The need for permanent endowed funds that underpin student financial aid, instructional support, library and information technology, and other programs is on-going.
Long-term Planning
Many alumni have expressed their loyalty to Bowdoin by including the College in their estate and financial plans. Over the last thirty years, these planned gifts have provided about one-third of all support to the College. Planned gifts may support the general educational purposes of the College or a specific College priority such as the endowment or a special project.
Our Planned Giving program currently has over $30 million under active management. Total Planned Giving receipts in fiscal year 2005-06 exceeded $7 million. We worked with donors from around the country on gifts that complement their own financial planning, resulting in new life income gifts worth $6 million that will benefit the donors and the College in the years to come. We also received over $1 million from a variety of trusts and estates.