Annual Report

July 1, 2011-June 30, 2012

Union’s 2011/12 fiscal year was a banner year for fundraising at the Seminary.  In this period, Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York raised a total of $6,080,447.  This represents an increase of 35% over the previous year.

The success of this year has been largely driven by two factors.  First, Union’s 175th anniversary gala raised over $500,000 toward student scholarships.  Not only a success in financial terms, the anniversary also brought many new friends to the Seminary whom we are currently cultivating and stewarding toward deeper involvement.  Second, through the generosity of a single gift, Union has created and fully endowed the Johnston Family Chair for Religion and Democracy.   

The Fiscal 2012 annual fund raised $1,092,951, a $25,551 (2%) increase over the Fiscal 2011 fund.  While giving to programmatic restricted funds shows a 13% decrease in funding from the FY11 amount, this is based on Union’s cash accounting and the number of multi-year grants received and pre-paid in FY11 for FY12 activities.  Endowment giving at $3,492,268 represents a 66% increase over the previous year.  

Union is particularly grateful to its Board of Trustees, who while giving $354,342 to the annual fund also gave $410,200 to programmatic restricted funds and $3,186,792 to the endowment.  In sum, FY12 Board giving totaled $3,951,334 an increase of 77% over the previous year and approximately 65% of all funds raised.  Isolating out the endowment funds, Union’s Board of Trustees contributed a total of $764,542 toward the combined annual and programmatic restricted funds in FY12, which represents an increase of $230,754 (30%) over the combined annual and programmatic restricted funds total for FY11. 

With these many accomplishments achieved, there is still much to do.  Presently, the Department of Institutional Advancement is working to further increase annual fund giving in FY13 as well as to secure funds for several endowed and programmatic activities.  The Jackson-Mitchell Chair remains the top major gift fundraising priority and Advancement has created a strategic plan to make progress toward that $3 million goal in this coming year.