Headlines

A record year for the annual fund

It was a record year for giving to the Geisel annual fund, which reached $878,849 in fiscal year 2013, a 17.7 percent increase in giving over last year's total of $746,848. Alumni and friends of the Medical School provided generous support, as did the Geisel Board of Overseers, which also contributed at record levels.

The Geisel annual fund is extremely crucial for the School because it is unrestricted funding that can be used in a variety of ways, including "providing valuable support to our students and faculty," says Mark Notestine, Geisel's associate dean for advancement. Gifts to the annual fund are often used to provide support for students pursuing global health experiences, for example, or to support research initiatives for young faculty investigators.

In addition to the annual fund success, overall Medical School fundraising totaled $16,042,268, including gifts from individuals, corporations, and foundations. For the Medical School, gaining clarity around fundraising priorities is key to future fundraising success. "Dean Souba has been very clear about our goals for the future. We're raising money for scholarships for our students and for chairs and professorships for our faculty, and we're aggressively raising support for our priority programs," says Notestine. Knowing the long-term vision for Geisel helps "create the opportunity for us to build close engagement with our donors so they can understand that they have a great opportunity to invest in something they care deeply about," he says. "We'll continue to be very ambitious as we set goals for next year. We're expecting to have a strong year and are most appreciative of the support of our alumni and friends."

Geisel fundraising is conducted jointly with academic partner Dartmouth-Hitchcock. Overall giving to the joint program totaled $26,513,643 for fiscal year 2013, an increase of $1.2 million (or 5 percent) compared to last year's total of $25,283,743.