University of Michigan launches largest fundraiser 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 $7 billion to fund the university’s visionary plans in the coming years.

The new Look in Michigan the campaign will support all three UM campuses, Michigan athletics, its Michigan Medicine academic medical center and more, university officials say. The campaign, which launched publicly on Friday night, October 25, has already quietly raised $3.3 billion.

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

The campaign is centered around four main pillars: delivering life-changing education, improving public health, strengthening civic engagement and combating climate change.

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

The Look to Michigan campaign was developed to support two initiatives Ono announced when he took over the first office in October 2022 – Vision 2034 and Campus Plan 2050.

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

UM officials say the Look To Michigan campaign will be centered around the following four priorities:

Life changing education: Enhancing the educational landscape by providing solutions to acute shortages of well-trained educators, addressing resource disparities, and giving all learners the opportunity to succeed.
Health and Wellbeing: Addressing critical health challenges both locally and globally, improving affordability and access to quality healthcare, supporting preventive health and generating breakthrough discoveries that improve and save lives.
Democracy, civic and global engagement: Reinvigorating community participation and critical thinking; expanding knowledge about democratic practices and principles; and strengthening local, national and international alliances.
Sustainability and action against climate change: Climate change mitigation 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 committed to advancing other key priorities in 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.

Michigan Vice President for Development Tom Baird said the fundraising campaign will support a “bold new vision for UM to be the defining public university of our time.”

“To fulfill this bold vision, we must turn 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 campaign. The most recent campaign, Victors for Michigan, ran from 2013 to 2018 and raised $5.3 billion.

You can learn more about the Look to Michigan campaign on the university’s website, linked here.

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