Oregon State University Foundation | |
Tax Id: | 93-6022772 |
Headquarters: | Corvallis, Oregon, U.S. |
Leader Title: | President/CEO |
Leader Name: | https://www.fororegonstate.org/about/osu-foundation-and-alumni-association-leadership-team/senior-leadership-team/shawn-scoville Shawn L. Scoville |
Key People: | https://fororegonstate.org/about/volunteer-board-leadership/osu-foundation-board-of-trustees Penny Atkins, Chair of the Board of Trustees |
Website: | https://www.fororegonstate.org/ fororegonstate.org |
The Oregon State University Foundation[1] is an American private nonprofit corporation associated with Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon. The OSU Foundation is governed by a volunteer Board of Trustees.[2]
In 1947, Robert M. Kerr, Edwin B. Aldrich and E. C. Sammons established the Oregon State College Foundation with the aid of OSC President A. L. Strand.[3] They saw the foundation as a means of creating opportunities that the college could not fulfill with state funds alone. That year they collected the OSC Foundation's first donation, a sum of five dollars. The OSC Foundation officially became the Oregon State University Foundation on November 14, 1962.
The university's endowment began with $20,000 in 1961. It took 16 years to reach its first $1 million in total receipts, and four more years to double that amount. Today the university's composite endowment totals more than $819 million,[4] with earnings distributed annually.
With university leaders, the OSU Foundation publicly launched Oregon State's first comprehensive fundraising campaign, The Campaign for OSU, on October 26, 2007, with a goal of $625 million.[5] Donors exceeded the original goal in October 2010, nearly a year ahead of schedule, and the goal was increased to $850 million. In March 2012 the goal was raised to $1 billion.[6] At OSU's annual State of the University address in Portland on January 31, 2014, President Edward J. Ray announced that campaign contributions had passed $1 billion, putting Oregon State with a group of 35 other public universities to cross the billion-dollar fundraising mark and one of only two organizations in the Pacific Northwest to reach the $1 billion campaign milestone.[7] The Campaign for OSU concluded on December 31, 2014, with more than $1.1 billion from 106,000 donors.[8]
The OSU Foundation and the OSU Alumni Association were integrated in 2017 to coordinate fundraising activities and alumni engagement in service to the university.[9]
On October 14, 2022, the OSU Foundation and university leaders publicly launched Oregon State’s second university-wide fundraising and engagement campaign, Believe It: The Campaign for Oregon State University. Since this campaign began in 2017, donors have committed more than $1 billion to support university priority initiatives toward the $1.75 billion goal.[10]