USC among top fundraising universities

For the fourth year running, USC has placed in the top three institutions nationwide for fundraising.

USC maintained its third- place position behind fundraising powerhouses Harvard University and Stanford University, which placed first and second, respectively. Alongside USC, the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell University and Yale University also rounded out the the top 10.

The top 10 included mostly private schools like USC, with only two public schools, The University of California San Francisco and University of Washington. UCLA finished just outside the top 10 at No. 12. Combined, the top 10 schools collected almost a third of every dollar donated to U.S. colleges in 2016.

Across the nation, donations to universities have kept up with the raising rate of inflation in 2016, reaching a combined $41 billion in donations, a growth of about 1.7 percent from the 2015 total.

In total, the survey reports that USC raised more than $1 billion in gifts and new pledges in 2016, with nearly $667 million of them in cash. This marks an important benchmark on President C.L. Max Nikias’s Campaign For USC fundraising initiative, now in its sixth year, which has nearly reached its $6 billion fundraising goal to advance academic opportunities at USC as well as expand the University’s role as a positive impact on the global and local community. So far, the campaign has raised $5.89 billion from more than 300,000 donors.

“USC’s fundraising momentum keeps building, confirming how much our community of supporters believe in the exciting growth at the university,” said Albert R. Checcio, USC’s senior vice president for university advancement, to USC News.