Nature & Nurture | Giving
Nicholas School commits to raise $5 million in endowed financial aid funds for professional degree students
by Laura Ertel
As part of Duke University’s recently announced campaign to raise $300 million in endowment funds for financial aid, the Nicholas School has launched an initiative to raise $5 million in fellowship endowments for graduate students in its professional program. Like the universitywide campaign, the Nicholas School’s three-year endeavor was publicly announced in January and runs through December 2008.
A matching gift challenge provided by the Duke Endowment and several individual donors is helping the Nicholas School in its fundraising efforts. The first $2 million raised by the school will be matched dollar for dollar for gifts of $100,000 to $1 million. So a gift of $100,000, with its $100,000 match, will provide the $200,000 needed to establish an unrestricted fellowship endowment. Endowment funds are particularly critical to educational institutions because the invested principal generates income annually to use toward financial aid. And because the principal remains intact, the endowment generates income in perpetuity, providing ongoing, essential support for the school.
The Nicholas School’s campaign focuses solely on raising endowed funds to support students in the Master of Environment Management and Master of Forestry program. Since undergraduate students who major in environmental studies at the Nicholas School actually receive their degrees from Trinity College or the Pratt School of Engineering, these students receive financial assistance through the university’s Undergraduate Financial Aid Office.
Funds greatly needed
Of the nearly $1 million in financial aid that the Nicholas School currently
provides for graduate students each year, less than 15 percent comes from
endowed funds dedicated to the financial needs of students, notes Susan
Berndt, former associate dean for external affairs who helped launch the
campaign and ensure its early success. She is currently regional major
gifts director for the university.
“The other 85 percent of those financial aid funds have to come from the school’s overall budget: from non-financial aid endowments, annual fund contributions and other sources,” she explains. “By building our financial aid endowment significantly, we can free up those other funds to use toward programs, student field trips, special visitors and other initiatives that enhance the quality of education the school offers.”
For many students, a financial aid package makes the difference between being able to attend the Nicholas School and having to go elsewhere. Building financial aid endowment is essential for the school to be able to compete for the best and brightest students.
Douglass F. Rohrman, former chair of the Nicholas School Board of Visitors, is the school’s representative on the Duke Financial Aid Initiative Development Committee. Rohrman, an attorney in Chicago, says the campaign is making good progress.
“The Nicholas School’s pride and joy is its graduate program, and it is absolutely essential that we have enough funds to assist all students who need financial aid to get a master’s degree here. There isn’t a better cause to contribute to at the university than to support financial aid for students of the environment, because there is no area that is more critical to the future of the world than solving environmental problems. The people committed to solving those problems come from a wide variety of backgrounds and abilities to pay, so it is essential for us to make that financial aid support available to them.”