UB is $50 million shy of its five-year capital campaign goal designed to improve academic programs and the quality of life at the university.
The campaign, "Generation to Generation," has generated $200 million thus far, and Provost Elizabeth Capaldi said there is little doubt UB can attain its $250 million goal by the end of the year.
Due to a personal emergency, Jennifer McDonough, head of "Generation to Generation" operations, was unavailable for comment.
According to the campaign's Web site, "Generation to Generation" is the fourth campaign of its kind in UB history, aiming to bring in more money than any other large-scale fundraising event held by a New York or New England university.
Capaldi said fundraising is vital to making UB a distinguished university and all public universities must raise "a lot of private money."
"If we really want to be terrific, we need to raise our own money," Capaldi said. "You wouldn't have nearly the level of quality without private investment."
According to Capaldi, "Generation to Generation" is composed of the goals of individual professional schools within UB. McDonough is responsible for working with deans from UB's different schools to determine how much funding each school should attempt to raise.
Campaign funds also create scholarships for students, provide library support, and help build an impressive UB staff, which Capaldi said would provide students with a better education as well as increase the university's prestige.
"We can use endowed shares to hire really good, famous professors," she said.
Almost $90 million of the funds raised came from several of UB's more than 160,000 alumni. According to Capaldi, other portions of the funding come from corporations, foundations, organizations and various individual sources.
Capaldi said she believes the promising results of the campaign can be largely attributed to satisfied alumni wanting to give to the school from which they graduated.
After "Generation to Generation" comes to a close, the provost said UB must begin another campaign right away and not lose sight of important goals to continually increase the quality of education.
"You have a little bit of a rest, then you have (a campaign) that's even bigger," she said. "You can't stop."
According to Capaldi, the results of campaign efforts, when shown to the community, have a great impact on peoples' desires to donate money toward improving the university.
"The only way to motivate people is to have a goal," Capaldi said. "You motivate people to give by showing what a difference it makes."
