San Diego State raised a record $107 million through The Campaign for SDSU during the last academic year.
The campaign has raised over $714 million to date, 95 percent of its $750 million goal.
The gifts and endowments will support scholarships, athletics, programs, research, faculty positions and more.
Mary Ruth Carleton, vice president of University Relations and Development, said she expects to exceed the $750 million goal by the end of the 2017 school year.
The Campaign for SDSU began in 2007 with an initial goal of $500 million. There have been eight consecutive years of record-breaking fundraising after the initial $66 million was raised in 2007.
The original $500 million goal was surpassed in Sept. 2014 and then extended to $750 million.
In total, there have been more than 180,000 donations made by almost 64,000 donors, according to A document provided by SDSU’s Director of Media Relations, Beth Chee. One hundred twenty-four of them donated $1 million or more.
The top fundraisers for the campaign are $177,758,372 through KPBS, $88,289,208 through the athletics department and $60,616,387 through the College of Business Administration. Both the College of Sciences and the College of Arts and Letters raised $55.6 million.
Conrad Prebys holds the record for personal donations to the campaign with $20 million in 2014.
Before his death, Prebys made an additional commitment for $1 million to go to the Engineering and Interdisciplinary Sciences Complex.
The new building will bring together the science community and raise SDSU’s level of excellence and stature in the academic world, said Carleton.
Current students who reach out to previous donors, alumni, parents and friends raise an average of $60,000 per year.
Most donors specify where they want their donation to go, whether it is for scholarships, a specific college, capital projects, veteran programs, athletics or other campus programs.
Over $140 million has been raised for student scholarships since the campaign launched.
“It’s important for the future of the university to support our faculty and staff,” Carleton said. “It is a critical part of our budget now that we aren’t getting as much funding from the state.”
The 2015-16 year saw a significant increase in the number of planned gifts and faculty and staff donations.
The campaign also received sizable donations from SDSU Strive, a crowdfunding platform, and Aztec Proud, which was created by The Office of Alumni Engagement.
Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Chukuka S. Enwemeka wrote in a press release that the university’s academic excellence depends on philanthropic support.
“The Campaign for SDSU has enabled us to strengthen academic programs while hiring and retaining high caliber faculty to prepare our students for career success,” Enwemeka said.
SDSU received an award for Sustained Excellence in Educational Fundraising in 2016 from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education. Only 20 universities in the country receive the award.
This is the fourth consecutive year the school has been nationally recognized by CASE.
