For All We Call Mizzou campaign finishes with $1.04 billion

The project will fund the renovations of Lafferre Hall.

By Amanda Wysocki

Published Feb. 16, 2009

The official For All We Call Mizzou campaign figures were released last week, ending with $1.04 billion raised for the university.

The project began Jan. 1, 2000, and it concluded Dec. 31, 2008.

Initially, the project was a way for MU to become more competitive with other research universities around the country, MU spokeswoman Beth Hammock said.

"We asked friends and alumni to raise significant amounts of money," Hammock said. "We created more scholarships and endowed faculty positions, but a lot of the money went for research."

The campaign focused on raising money in four specific areas: students, faculty, programs and facilities.

Buildings such as the Reynolds Journalism Institute and Mizzou Arena were built with the money from the campaign, Hammock said. The Reynolds family donated the largest amount of money in the campaign to go toward building the new journalism institute.

Hammock also said 1,500 more students are receiving scholarships than when the campaign began. Donors also endowed 91 faculty positions.

"It's helpful to have endowed positions because it is useful in helping us recruit the best faculty," Hammock said.

In order to create an endowed position, donors designate $1.1 million to go toward that faculty member. The university then uses about 5 percent of that money annually to pay the faculty member.

Other projects that will be funded by the campaign include the renovation of Lafferre Hall and of the engineering library.

The largest portion of the money raised came from alumni, who donated 39 percent of the final amount. The rest came from friends, corporations and faculty.

The campaign finished ahead of schedule, Hammock said. The first phase, which ended in 2005, was only set to raise $600 million, but the university earned more than that goal and decided to increase the final amount to $1 billion.

The university announced they had reached the $1 billion mark on Nov. 7, Hammock said. By the end of 2008, it went $39 million more than the goal.