AMHERST — Backed by more than 103,000 donors, the University of Massachusetts Amherst raised $379 million in a six-year fundraising drive that came to a close at the end of June.
The money will be used for a bevy of academic and research programs at UMass, as well as be put toward the university’s endowment.
The final haul for the UMass Rising campaign soared pased the $300 million goal university officials set in 2010.
Last year, UMass announced it had reached the goal, but fundraising continued. The $379 million figure was as of June 30, when the drive closed. The tally was announced Monday in a news release.
“Through the success of UMass Rising, we will support our faculty and students while creating a world-class environment,” UMass Amherst Chancellor Kumble Subbaswamy said in a statement. “We will seize this moment in our history and ensure ongoing momentum.”
The news release says $108 million will go toward the university’s permanent endowment, and details other specific projects part of the money is going toward.
Among them:
$10 million from Douglas and Diana Berthiaume in 2014 to create the Berthiaume Center for Entrepreneurship. The center “serves as a campus-wide incubator for collaboration leading to economic development,” the release said.
$5 million from Pamela and Robert Jacobs is being used to fund a Judiac and Near Eastern Studies chair, named after the two. It will also support the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide and Memory Studies, and UMass Hillel.
An anonymous $10 million will go toward a new home for the department of economics.
A total of $164 million was raised for academic and research programs.
More than 103,000 people cut checks for the campaign, according to the school.
Parents and university staff and faculty contributed heavily, according to the release. Faculty and staff — current and former — chipped in $10.7 million.
The university didn’t provide a figure as to how much parents contributed, but said “many parents” were among 44,000 new university donors.
The release also says philanthropy has a “growing importance” in funding “strategic priorities.”
“There is much more we can and will do to fuel the work of the flagship campus as a leader in public higher education,” said Michael Leto, executive director of the UMass Amherst Foundation.
He continued, “We look forward to keeping the momentum going in the years ahead.”
Giving categories and amounts are: Talented Students: $61,010,708.15, First Class Faculty: $42,149,071.46, Buildings and Infrastructure: $68,293,955.37, Research and Programs: $164,273,363.67, Annual Fund: $43,077,074.06, according to UMass spokesman Edward Blaguszewski.