Virginia Tech launched a $1.5B fundraising campaign to expand university initiatives

Virginia Tech has launched a $1.5 billion fundraising campaign to expand on its university programming, including financial support for its Northern Virginia Innovation Campus. This is the university’s largest fundraising effort yet.

Over the weekend, we launched our fourth-ever national campaign. While this campaign is new, it’s part of a story that has been building for years, as we plan for what #VirginiaTech’s role in the world can be. 🌏

Join us in propelling VT to greatness. ✨https://t.co/aM5o4P9yKs

— Virginia Tech (@virginia_tech) October 14, 2019

The fundraiser titled “Boundless Impact: The Campaign for Virginia Tech,” will run through June 30, 2027, and has a goal to interact with at least 100,000 alumni in “meaningful” ways. This is the university’s fourth-ever national campaign. Some other main priorities of the campaign include, expanding with a business complex at its main campus in Blacksburg, fostering new collaborations and partnerships, investing in research in health sciences and even diversity and inclusion recruitment.

“The Boundless Impact campaign will generate the philanthropic resources that are critical to success, and it will enhance and nurture the Virginia Tech culture by engaging more alumni, students, parents, and friends than ever before,” said Morgan Blackwood Patel, who is one of three campaign chairs, in a statement. “This campaign is a way to bring Hokies together for something that is truly important — the future of the university that we love.”

Patel is leading this initiative along with two other VT alumni, Horacio Valeiras and Lynne Doughtie. The campaign officially kicked off on Friday, Oct.11, with a concert event at the VT campus.

As for the innovation campus specifically, a portion of the campaign will go toward the construction of the first academic building, which will be 300,000 square feet in size and cost about $275 million, the Washington Business Journal reported. This building’s construction is expected to start within the next two years. WBJ also reported that the fundraising effort has already brought in $512 million through a silent campaign from the last two years.