The most recent month of December will be remembered for more than a visit by jolly old Saint Nick at Guilford College. An all-time record of $3,434,093 in cash gifts was received by the college during the month. To put that in context, the $3.4 million total received in one month nearly reached the $3.8 million that Guilford received during the entire 1999-2000 academic year. And it more than tripled the $944,292 in cash gifts that came to Guilford in December of 1999.
Guilford President Donald W. McNemar was all smiles as he talked about the record-breaking month. “When I first heard the December gift figures, it seemed too good to be true,” he said. “But the figures are true, and this is very exciting news for Guilford College. The combination of new donations and payments on earlier pledges made to the college make this the largest total of cash gifts in a single month in the history of the college.
“The fact that we received nearly $3.4 million in December alone symbolizes the growing momentum of Guilford’s $50 million Our Time in History campaign. These gifts reflect both the generosity of our alumni, friends, and supporters as well as the outstanding work of Charlie Patterson and his colleagues in the Office of Institutional Advancement and our many volunteers. It was, indeed, a record-breaking month for Guilford College fund raising.”
Guilford is making good progress in its campaign, and has now realized $33.3 million in gifts and pledges toward the $50 million goal.
The December totals consisted of 955 separate gifts from 776 donors, including two donations of over $500,000 each, and three others between $100,000 and $500,000.
“December is usually a big month in our kind of work because our supporters want to make their gifts before the end of the calendar year and get an additional tax deduction,” said Patterson, who is vice president for institutional advancement. “But gee whiz, this
December really surpassed all of our expectations. It was really a great month.”
Patterson said the $3.4 million given to Guilford in December was made possible because of “the generosity of many of Guilford’s fine supporters, and it also reflects the good work of others who have worked in this office earlier, before I came to Guilford. In addition, we had pretty good luck on timing.”
June Chambliss, director of development information at Guilford, did some checking to see how December ranked in terms of total cash gifts received. She found that the next best month in terms of cash gifts received at Guilford was December of 1997 when $2.3 million was receipted. Next was December of 1999, when $1.8 million was received. In addition, Guilford has had 11 other single months when cash gifts topped at least $1 million.
Patterson said the gifts received in December should provide a real boost to Guilford’s total cash gifts for the entire academic year. “The momentum of our campaign is really going in the right direction, and we are anticipating another $1 million month in January,” he said.