The University of British Columbia has launched an ambitious $1.5 billion fundraising campaign with a twin goal of doubling the number of alumni engaged in the life of the university by 2015.
In the planning years leading up to the campaign launch, the university raised $760 million towards the final goal. The number of alumni involved with UBC has increased by more than 50 per cent over the last three years. The university is aiming to double engagement to 50,000 alumni annually by the end of the campaign.
By combining philanthropic gifts and alumni talents, UBC seeks to enhance student learning, expand research capacity and extend its community engagement initiatives.
The campaign, named start an evolution, is the largest fundraising campaign in Canadian university history and was launched in Vancouver today with a campus celebration. UBC’s campus in the Okanagan aims to raise $100 million and double its own alumni participation levels as part of the overall UBC campaign goals.
“As one of the world’s top ranked universities, UBC is already at the forefront of many of the major issues facing us today,” said UBC President Prof. Stephen Toope at today’s launch event. “We are inviting our alumni, donors and friends to join forces with us so that together we can be more effective in finding long-term solutions to our world’s most pressing problems.” [read the full press release].
At the opening launch on September 28, 2011 three projects were highlighted to the audience:
- Tagg Jefferson, Entrepreneurship@ubc student
- Kishor Wasan, Neglected Global Diseases Initiative
- Jodie Martinson, Alison Lawton, International Reporting Course
After viewing a short promotional piece for the NGDI and Kish’s Oral AmpB project, Kish told the audience the story of discovering neglected diseases through a serendipitous conversation with a Universities Allied for Essential Medicines student.
He ended with a call for students to take up the work on neglected diseases, “My generation isn’t going to solve them all, your generation is”, he stated.
The Neglected Global Diseases Initiative is a priority project for funding with the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences under their international engagement section.
For more information on the startanevolution campaign: www.startanevolution.ca.
For the Neglected Global Diseases Initiatives priority page: Neglected Global Diseases Initiative Fund.
Download an information page for the program: NGDI-UBC Information Sheet