Johns Hopkins Sets Fund-Raising Record in 1997

Private giving to Johns Hopkins -- both the university and the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System -- in fiscal 1997 far surpassed the record of $125.9 million set in fiscal 1996. The figure includes cash received in fiscal 1997 both from new gifts and from payments on previous years' pledges.

"The generosity of our alumni and friends, as well as the tremendous support we have received from foundations and corporations, is extremely gratifying," said Robert R. Lindgren, vice president for development and alumni relations.

The $900 million Johns Hopkins Initiative fund-raising campaign has now recorded $756.4 million in gifts and pledges -- 84 percent of the goal -- less than three years since its public announcement in October 1994. In fiscal 1997, which ended June 30, campaign commitments -- that is, new gifts and new pledges of future gifts -- totaled $159.4 million.

The year's two largest commitments were for gifts to the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. An anonymous donor pledged $15 million for endowment and renovation of facilities in the basic sciences. Alumni Lenox D. and Frances W. Baker created a $10 million endowment to support the position of the dean. Those gifts pushed the Fund for Johns Hopkins Medicine, the medicine-related portion of the institutions' overall fund-raising effort, to a record $92.1 million in commitments in fiscal 1997. More recently, the fund also received $2 million from Bernard L. Schwartz of New York City to establish the Bernard L. Schwartz Distinguished Professorship in Urologic Oncology.

Other fiscal 1997 commitments to Hopkins included $1 million from Mark and Barbara Rubenstein of Philadelphia to the Whiting School of Engineering for endowment. A university trustee, Rubenstein chairs the Whiting School's National Advisory Council and campaign committee.

An anonymous $2 million commitment to the School of Continuing Studies will endow scholarships for adults returning for advanced professional training. More than $900,000 from the late Dorothy Scott Bendann of Baltimore has endowed a scholarship and a junior faculty position at the Peabody Conservatory.

Also in fiscal 1997, a gift of $250,000 from Patricia Schaefer of Muncie, Ind., is supporting renovation of the audiovisual center and an endowment fund at the Milton S. Eisenhower Library. Members of the School of Nursing class of 1947 gave more than $360,000, part of which will support construction of the new School of Nursing building, a $17.8 million facility that will open by the end of 1997. The campaign so far has generated a total of $12.7 million for the building.

Other commitments announced during fiscal 1997 include $2.25 million from the Gates Foundation, established by Bill and Melinda French Gates, to support worldwide family planning education at the School of Public Health; $1 million from the PepsiCo Foundation for a new student recreation center on the Homewood campus; and $1 million from the Charles Crane Family Foundation of Baltimore for a visiting professorship in Judaic studies in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.

Publicly launched in October of 1994, the Johns Hopkins Initiative is scheduled for completion in 2000. Commitments for endowment and capital purposes, the primary objectives of the campaign, have reached $460 million, or 88 percent of the $525 million goal. Endowment gifts are especially important because they provide a permanent source of income for Johns Hopkins. Endowment funds are invested and only a portion of the interest earned is spent each year.

Lenox D. Baker Jr., a cardiac surgeon from Norfolk, Va., and R. Champlin Sheridan of Hanover, Pa., president of the Sheridan Group, are co-chairs of the Johns Hopkins Initiative. Both are Hopkins graduates and trustees of the university and of Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Reporters: Please note the distinction between cash gifts and commitments. The $164.4 million record set in fiscal 1997 was for cash gifts, i.e., for the total of all gifts actually received by Hopkins during the fiscal year. Some of these gifts were payments on pledges made in earlier years. The $159.4 million in commitments recorded in fiscal 1997 refers to money committed to Hopkins for the first time during the year. Some of the money was pledged for payment in future years; some was received by Hopkins in fiscal 1997, and, therefore, is also included in the fiscal 1997 total of cash gifts.

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