Dive Brief:
- Catawba College, in North Carolina, has received its second anonymous $200 million donation in three years, the institution announced Monday.
- Roughly $133 million of the new gift will be unrestricted, and the rest is designated to support Catawba’s programs in environment and sustainability, an area of focus for the college.
- The college’s endowment has now reached over $580 million, almost seven times its value in May 2021.
Dive Insight:
In 2021, the small liberal arts college announced its first $200 million donation — at the time the largest it had ever received.
Like the gift reported this week, a third of the first one went to its environment and sustainability programs, Catawba said. The rest funded student success initiatives, financial aid and investments in faculty.
Catawba also received an endowment donation of $42 million in 2022.
The “transformative” trio of donations were all made anonymously, the college said. A spokesperson Tuesday declined to say if the three gifts came from the same donor.
The 173-year-old college has weathered the higher education sector’s headwinds better than other similarly situated institutions.
Catawba has seen enrollment dip, though not as dramatically as some of its peers. In fall 2022, it had 1,172 students, down 12.3% from 1,337 a decade earlier.
The college only reported a budget deficit once from 2012 to 2022 — almost $5 million in 2016, according to tax filings. Many years, contributions gave a significant boost to its revenue. For example, it reported nearly $276 million in revenue for fiscal 2022, roughly 85% of which came from contributions.
Prior to the $200 million gift in 2021, the college had received $18 million in donations that year — enough to eliminate its debt.
This May, Catawba announced it would build a new sustainable residence hall thanks to a $30 million donation. The dorm, set to be completed in August 2026, will increase its residential capacity by almost 20%.
“We are continually amazed at the generosity of our supporters,” Meg Dees, vice president of Catawba, said at the time.
Alumni support appears to be a significant factor for Catawba’s giving.
Forbes included Catawba on its list of 200 colleges with the most “grateful graduates” in 2019. The since-discontinued index tracked how many alumni donated to their college and by how much they gave.
That year, 12% of Catawba graduates gave to their alma mater, the same rate as those at Columbia University, for example.