The University of Michigan is launching its largest fundraising campaign ever to raise $7 billion

ANN ARBOR, MI – The University of Michigan is launching the largest and most ambitious fundraising campaign in its history, hoping to raise an incredible $7 billion to fund the university's visionary plans in the coming years.

The new “Look to Michigan” campaign will support all three UM campuses, Michigan Athletics, the academic medical center Michigan Medicine and more, university officials say. The campaign, which launched publicly late Friday, October 25, has already quietly raised $3.3 billion.

University officials are calling the campaign “UM’s most ambitious and innovative fundraising effort to date” and the largest known campaign goal of any public university.

The campaign focuses on four key pillars: providing life-changing education, improving public health, strengthening civic engagement and combating climate change.

“Finding solutions to the greatest challenges we face requires unwavering determination and an innovative approach,” UM President Santa Ono said in a statement. “But this is a transformative moment for Michigan as we boldly discover together what’s next for a better future.”

The “Look to Michigan” campaign was designed to support two initiatives Ono announced when he took office in October 2022 – Vision 2034 and Campus Plan 2050.

Vision 2034 sets a 10-year strategic vision for the entire university, while Campus Plan 2050 provides development plans for the Ann Arbor campus over the next quarter.

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UM officials say the “Look To Michigan” campaign will focus on the following four priorities:

• Life-changing education: Improving the educational landscape by providing solutions to the acute shortage of well-prepared teachers, addressing resource disparities, and providing opportunities for success for all learners.
• Health and well-being: Addressing critical health challenges locally and globally, improving affordability and access to quality health care, advancing preventive health care, and developing innovative discoveries that improve and save lives.
• Democracy, civic and global engagement: strengthening community participation and critical thinking; expanding knowledge of democratic practices and principles; and strengthening local, national and international alliances.
• Sustainability and climate protection: Mitigating climate change through research and education; Empowering students, faculty, staff, and community members to find equitable solutions; and working with partners to create long-term change.

The university is also dedicated to advancing other key priorities under the campaign plan, such as supporting the arts, promoting inclusion on campus, supporting the student experience and providing comprehensive services, and increasing impact through economic development, UM officials said. Officer.

Tom Baird, Michigan's vice president for development, said the fundraiser will support a “bold new vision for UM to become the defining public university of our time.”

“To realize this bold vision, we must translate it into bold action,” he said in a statement. “That’s where the Look to Michigan campaign comes in: philanthropic support to make that vision a reality.”

This is the university's seventh fundraising event. The most recent campaign, Victors for Michigan, ran from 2013 to 2018 and raised $5.3 billion.

For more information about the Look to Michigan campaign, visit the university's website, linked here.

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