In July 2001, the Achieve Campaign’s goal was to raise $750 million, but now the campaign has crossed the $1 billion mark and is still going.

Organizers of the campaign said the funds will benefit students, whether directly or indirectly.

The Achieve! Campaign is a capital campaign for raising the University’s endowment funds — permanent funds of money, portions of which the University takes. The rest is stored in funds where the money will increase over time and benefit the University.

According to Terry Wood, vice chancellor for advancement, the Achieve! Campaign is a comprehensive campaign in which all parts of the University are involved.

“We allowed entities to identify their own proposals on what they wanted to raise money for,” Wood said.

The campaign steering committee, he said, set its own fundraising goals based on trends in donor activity, results of previous campaigns and projection over a seven-year period.

“N.C. State had needs that could not be met through the state appropriations and tuition funding total, and the campaign was able to enhance all of the projects of the University,” Wood said.

According to Chancellor James Oblinger, the steering committee members set the campaign’s goal at $750 million, which it reached Sept. 23, 2005, the public launch of the campaign. Oblinger said they were not expecting to reach it so early, especially with the economic recession after 9-11, and changed the goal to $1 billion.

Oblinger said despite what some may think, the money the campaign has raised is not all money that the University has received in cash, rather also money people or groups have pledged, or money people wrote to the University in their wills, such as money from life insurance.

According to Oblinger, not many other universities have met this challenge.

“Many of the universities who [administered $1 billion campaigns] have medical schools,” he said.

Wood said reaching the $1 billion mark puts NCSU in a select group of 25 other universities in the country that have reached this goal.

The campaign met its second goal of $1 billion in November, according to Oblinger. By the end of December, the campaign had reached $1 billion 53 million.

“We’ve been very unified in pursuing our goals,” he said.

According to Oblinger, ranking organizations sometimes take into account a university’s endowment when ranking it.

Wood said the University’s campaign does not end until June 2008, and until then, it will continue to set records because “the momentum has continued.”

According to Paul Eberle, associate vice chancellor for University advancement, the main sources of funds for the campaign is donations from alumni, friends of the University, corporations and foundations.

Oblinger said relationships are important for campaigns.

“The more in touch we stay with our alumni and the people we partner with, the better we are as a University in responding to our needs,” he said.

The Campaign for N.C. State Students, which lasted from 1997 to 2000, raised about $128 million from private donations, according to Wood.

The Achieve! Campaign not only depends on private donations, but a source of its funding comes from charitable foundations and corporations.

The areas the campaign money will fund are for support of faculty, student, facilities, outreach, research and unrestricted support.

According to Eberle, all areas the campaign will fund will benefit students, not just the student support area, but even the faculty support area.

The campaign Web site stated faculty support “will be earmarked for the hiring, retention and support of faculty members of distinction.” Eberle said faculty support includes “professorships that augment faculty salaries” and “teaching labs, as opposed to only research labs.”

Student support, according to Eberle, includes fellowships and scholarships.

Facilities support is keeping up “with the growing resource and facility needs that a leading research university demands,” the campaign Web site stated and includes such projects as enhancements to the library, according to Debbie Griffith, associate vice chancellor for public affairs.

Outreach support is “programs to educate students and serve the people of North Carolina and beyond,” according to the campaign Web site. It includes such projects as the Industrial Extension Service, which reaches out to businesses all over the state, helping people get hands-on-experience, Griffith said.

Research support is “research that could lead to new knowledge, new industries, a stronger economy and improved quality of life,” the Web site stated, and it can also allot money for faculty members to hire students, Eberle said.

“We are a land-grant institution, and that helps us keep focused,” he said.

Unrestricted support is “flexible funds to enable leaders at N.C. State to seize promising opportunities or meet unexpected challenges,” the Web site stated.

“The priority going forward is that we are wanting to place increased emphasis over the University’s endowment for the next 14 months,” Wood said.

NCSU’s endowment fund, $412 million according to Griffith, is the second lowest in the ACC.

“If we don’t have a huge endowment, we don’t have money to spend,” she said.

According to Griffith, without private support, the campaign would not have been able to fund many of the University’s programs or enhance its current ones.

Wood, who announced his retirement for 2008, said the campaign will be concluding then, and the new vice chancellor will begin to prepare for the next campaign.

“My hope for the program going forward is that the momentum will continue and the University will capitalize on all we have learned in this campaign,” Wood said.