WSU Fund Drive Surpasses Goal

Not content to stop at their original goal of $200 million, organizers of Washington State University’s massive fund-raising effort decided to press on another year and shoot for a quarter-billion dollars.

At last count, Campaign WSU had raised $207 million, well ahead of its mid-1996 deadline.

Some 29 percent of the school’s alumni have given to the campaign - well above the national average of 18 percent who give to public universities.

Yet organizers felt there were still other alumni, businesses and citizens who would want, in President Sam Smith’s words, “a chance to participate.”

“We certainly did think about whether we were pushing the envelope too far,” said Jack Creighton, president of the Weyerhaeuser Company and national vice chairman of the campaign.

But other officials in the campaign estimated that $250 million would be a “reasonable amount to expect to raise” if the deadline were extended to mid-1997, Creighton said a during telephone news conference Thursday.

The campaign will now focus on raising money for undergraduate scholarships and technological improvements like multimedia and Internet-based instruction. About 22 percent of the money raised so far is directed at student scholarships, said Connie Kravas, president of the WSU Foundation.

Now in its sixth year, Campaign WSU is the largest fund-raising undertaking since the foundation was created 16 years ago.

, DataTimes