Ben Smidt

A plan to raise $35 million by July 2005 to bolster programs such as scholarship funds and campus technology officially was announced Friday, and university officials are looking to do something most public regional universities don’t do.

The fund-raising campaign, named Fulfilling the Promise of Excellence, started in July 2000, and has raised more than $18 million.

The campaign is a focused effort to go beyond traditional fund-raising techniques to get more gifts, Chancellor Donald Mash said.

This type of focused campaign is common at private universities, but not at public institutions, Mash said. It often is associated with fund-raising efforts to construct buildings, which is not a plan of UW-Eau Claire’s goal.

Until now, the campaign has been in a quiet phase, said Carole Halberg, president of the Foundation, which oversees gifts to the university. That means administrators were talking with people who could give major gifts and assessing what to set the goal of the campaign at, she said.

The $4.5 million gift by David and Marilyn Karlgaard contributed to $18 million collected thus far.

This gift is the largest to a Wisconsin public institution. The campaign is a more aggressive type of fund-raising than the university usually engages in, Mash said. It is more of a focused effort than traditional fund-raising like telephone calls to alumni and planned gifts. “It provides a real spark, a real push,” Mash said.

Although the goal seems big, Halberg said it is attainable. “We wanted to set a goal that was challenging but achievable,” Halberg said. “I think we’ve done that.”