Oregon150 is a new fundraising initiative that the University of Oregon unveiled on May 30 that is centered around two goals: capital projects and student success.
The aim of this initiative is to raise $500 million through Dec. 31, 2026, for infrastructure projects in the Eugene and Downtown Portland campuses. The capital priorities include funding for the relocated UO Portland campus and the Knight Campus Building 2 in Eugene, which is currently being constructed near the Mill Race area.
Student success goals for Oregon150 include the continual funding of PathwayOregon, a program that ensures federal Pell Grant-eligible Oregonians will have their tuition and fees paid through a combination of federal, state and university funds.
UO Director of Development Communications Monique Danziger described Oregon150’s student success goals as “access [to scholarships], Student Services, academics and research and career preparation and networking.”
“Oregon150 continues the momentum of UO’s previous $3.2 billion campaign [and] builds on the success of its signature PathwayOregon scholarship program, and is inspired by a visionary gift from donors Connie and Steve Ballmer in 2022 to establish the Ballmer Institute for Children’s Behavioral Health and fund scholarships,” Danzinger said.
Joe Buck is the UO vice president for University Advancement, a branch of UO that specializes in creating and maintaining relationships between donors and policymakers to ensure that the university continues with its educational goal.
“It started with student success right, and President Scholz cares deeply about student success and as you would imagine all of the other units on campus are invested in student success,” Buck said.
The timeframe for collecting donations for the initiative had been changed retroactively, according to Buck. Donations to UO were placed into this initiative beginning July 2021, even though the initiative was not officially unveiled until May 30, 2024.
When asked why this was, Buck said, “Let’s pick ‘University X,’ this is an example right, they want to do a fundraising campaign for a billion dollars. What they’ll do is they will do a lot of internal work [and] they’ll figure out, ‘Oh we have some momentum here right and now we can go publicly [and say] we want to raise a billion dollars with this thing.’ Most times they would have raised 40% to 50% already.”
According to Buck, the university uses this technique to show momentum, support and excitement. He also said that very few universities ever begin a campaign with zero dollars.
The money that had been raised before Oregon150 was announced was kept to motivate people by the success of the project thus far, Buck said.
“We were thinking to ourselves, ‘Well those gifts support student success, let’s think about capturing those gifts to present a larger number as our goal and aspiration and support it by some gifts that we have already received,’” Buck said.
Buck is making reference to the monetary gifts that are “gifted” to the university by donors. When asked if there was a publicly available list of donors, he said that there was not.
“There are some conversations you have, most people, as I said, when they make a gift realize that the university, while their gift is anonymous, we can use the amount of the gift or the gift itself for publicity for initiatives and fundraising campaigns,” Buck said.
This makes reference to the fact that most gifts to the university and to this campaign are anonymous.
“It’s not a general practice to go back and ask for permission to count your gift as a part of the campaign,” Buck said. “It’s just kinda assumed and it’s in the agreement that the donors sign that the university can use it for publicity.”