University of Oregon fundraises $131 million

The University of Oregon’s private fundraising slowed in the last fiscal year, following the $500 million donation pledge from Phil and Penny Knight for a new science campus.

The UO reported receiving $131 million in gifts and other contributions, its lowest total since the 2013-14 fiscal year. It’s only the second time since the state agreed in 2013 to give the UO more independence with its own board of trustees that the university has failed to raise at least $200 million in donations in a year.

Still, the down year followed a blockbuster 2016-17 fiscal year, where the UO pulled in $695 million, thanks to the long-anticipated $500 million pledge from the Nike co-founder and his wife for the science campus, which is currently under construction.

That donation — the largest ever to the university — is being spread out over the next 10 years, with the Knights providing $50 million a year. But it was recorded as a single gift in the year of the pledge, under university philanthropic reporting standards.

Mike Andreasen, vice president for advancement, said university giving “is not an exact science” and there are always “up and down” years.

“We just didn’t have a handful of really large gifts” in the past year, he said. “This was more of an average year.”

But Andreasen said he didn’t feel that the Knight gift, and the significant publicity it attracted, played a role in demotivating other donors.

“You always worry about that and the perception that one donor has stepped up and done something amazing, so others feel less compelled” to give, he said. “But I’m not seeing that in the data.”

Andreasen pointed to the university’s 37,500 individual donors and 52,972 total gifts as a sign of stability in philanthropy.