Gift total to WMU for 2002-03 tops $19.4 million
Sept. 14, 2003
KALAMAZOO -- Western Michigan University received more than $19.4 million in gifts during the University's 2002-03 fiscal year, the second-largest, one-year total in school history.
According to a report presented to the WMU Board of Trustees at its Sept. 12 meeting, the University received $19,484,338 in gifts during the fiscal year that began July 1, 2002, and ended June 30, 2003. The past four years have seen the four largest one-year gift totals in WMU history, including the record $26 million received in 2001-02, $18.5 million in 2000-01 and $17.5 million in 1999-2000.
All gifts to the University are received through the WMU Foundation or the Paper Technology Foundation, which supports the internationally known paper programs at WMU. For the 2002-03 fiscal year, the WMU Foundation reported current and deferred cash gifts totaling $17,009,368 and non-cash gifts valued at $1,841,313, for a total of $18,940,681. The Paper Technology Foundation reported cash gifts totaling $291,657 and non-cash gifts valued at $252,000, for a total of $543,657.
Also reported to the trustees at the Sept. 12 meeting was $5,578,367 in gifts received during July, the first month of the 2003-04 fiscal year. A distribution of more than $2.5 million from the estate of alumna Gwen Frostic accounted for nearly half of the July total. The Frostic gift of about $13 million, was announced in January 2002 and is the largest in WMU history.
Other major gifts received in July include $177,280 from the estate of Helen E. Plough of Delton, Mich., who died Dec. 14, 2000. Her husband, John H. Plough, earned a teaching certificate in 1915 and a bachelor's degree in 1942 from WMU. He died in 1982. The gift will fund the John and Helen Plough Scholarship in the Department of Blindness and Low Vision Studies.
Fernando U. Fajardo of Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., contributed $42,000 to the Fajardo Fund for the WMU Environmental Institute in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Lyndon and Carmen Cronen of Portage, Mich., supported the Athletic Director's Discretionary Fund with a gift of $10,000.
Media contact: Thom Myers, 269 387-8400, thom.myers@wmich.edu