BrownTogether, the University’s largest fundraising campaign, reached its $4 billion goal 10 months ahead of schedule, according to a letter to the community from President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 released Wednesday.
The University first launched BrownTogether in 2015 with a funding goal of $3 billion. In 2021, after reaching the goal over a year before the campaign’s scheduled end, the University increased the goal and extended it through the end of 2024.
As of February, the campaign has raised $4.021 billion. Significant donations include a $100 million gift for the Carney Institute for Brain Science from Robert Carney ’61 and Nancy Carney, a $25 million gift from Jonathan Nelson ’77 used to create the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship and a $50 million gift from Chancellor Samuel Mencoff ’78 and Ann Mencoff toward biomedical research.
More recently, donations from Barry Sternlicht ’82, P’16 and Mimi Reichert Sternlicht ’83, P’16 helped establish the Sternlicht Commons and Brown University Health & Wellness Center in 2021.
Funding from BrownTogether has been used to establish endowed professorships, hire more faculty and staff and support financial aid programs, according to a 2021 release from the University. Brown recently announced a shift toward need-blind admissions for international student applicants which the campaign will also support.
Over the summer, leadership over the campaign will be transferred to incoming Chancellor Brian Moynihan with the continued support of co-chairs Theresia Gouw ’90, Ralph Rosenberg ’86 and Joan Wernig Sorensen ’72, all either current or former trustees and fellows of the Corporation, the University’s highest governing body. When the campaign was first launched, it had 12 co-chairs, including Martin Granoff P’93 and Nelson, both significant donors themselves.
“Even as we have met the overall fundraising goal, we continue to build investment for a range of priorities, including some that emerged as new opportunities to make an impact since the early launch of the campaign,” Paxson wrote in an email to The Herald. “The always-shifting landscape of education and research has continued to help shape original priorities, while also allowing us to align our research and scholarly expertise to make an impact in evolving and emerging fields.”
Priorities for the last few months of the campaign will include fundraising for the arts and the humanities, as well as the physical, life and environmental sciences, Paxson wrote, adding that “financial aid, diversity and inclusion initiatives, athletics… and career preparation” will remain priorities.
Anisha Kumar is a section editor covering University Hall. She is a sophomore from Menlo Park, California concentrating in English and Political Science who loves speed-crosswording and rewatching sitcoms.
