Alumni, Friends
Give Hopkins Over
$125 Million

Private giving to Johns Hopkins--both the university and the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System--was up one-third in fiscal 1996 from $94.7 million the previous year. It was only the fourth time in the history of the institutions that total gifts topped $100 million. The previous record, $111.8 million, was set in fiscal 1990.

Fiscal 1996 commitments to the Johns Hopkins Initiative, the $900 million campaign now under way at the university and health system, were a record $198.3 million. That's nearly 29 percent ahead of the previous record for new gifts and pledges, $154 million in fiscal 1995. Commitments announced in fiscal 1996 included $55 million from business news entrepreneur Michael R. Bloomberg, the largest gift in Johns Hopkins history.

Robert R. Lindgren, vice president for development and alumni relations, said the records set in the year ending June 30 were a "wonderful expression of support" by Hopkins alumni and friends.

"We are just about where we should be at this stage of the campaign," Lindgren said. "This type of growth is what you look for during a campaign of this size, especially during the early years when leadership gifts and pledges are coming in."

Publicly launched in September 1994, the Johns Hopkins Initiative is scheduled for completion in 2000. The 1996 commitments bring the campaign to $596.9 million in gifts and pledges, or 66 percent of the $900 million overall goal. The campaign has received $378.3 million in gifts and pledges for endowment and facilities, or 72 percent of the $525 million goal for these priorities, the primary focus of the campaign.

"The next stretch is both challenging and fun," Lindgren said. "We are entering a phase of the campaign in which we will seek even more intensely to broaden our base of support, for this campaign and for the decades ahead. One of the primary purposes of a campaign is to expand awareness of Hopkins' mission and impact on society to an ever-widening audience."

Lindgren credited much of the campaign's success to its volunteer leadership. Until recently, it was chaired by Bloomberg, a 1964 engineering graduate who is founder and president of Bloomberg L.P., the parent company of such ventures as Bloomberg Business News.

Elected in May as chairman of the university's board of trustees, Bloomberg turned over the reins of the campaign to fellow alumni and trustees Lenox D. Baker Jr., who received his bachelor's degree in 1963 and his medical degree in 1966, and R. Champlin Sheridan Jr., who received his bachelor's degree in 1952.

Baker is a senior partner in Mid-Atlantic Cardiothoracic Surgeons Ltd. in Norfolk, Va., one of the largest such practices in the country. Sheridan is chairman of the Sheridan Group of Hanover, Pa., one of the nation's leading scientific and medical printers.

Lindgren also cited the leadership of Morris W. Offit, past chairman of the university board of trustees, and of George L. Bunting Jr., chairman of the Johns Hopkins Health System board.