By Jennifer Smola, The Columbus Dispatch
COLUMBUS – Donors to Ohio State University upped their game once again during the past fiscal year, raising more than $532 million for education, research, athletics and innovation at the university.
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That’s a record-breaking total for OSU, and nearly a dollar for every living alumni worldwide.
More than 267,000 donors contributed in fiscal year 2017, which ended June 30. That total increased nearly 17 percent from last year’s record $457 million, the university announced Tuesday. Alumni contributed nearly $105 million, while current students and parents gave more than $5 million.
“The difference between A and A+ is huge,” OSU President Michael V. Drake told The Dispatch Tuesday, echoing a sentiment he said he often shares with donors. “The extra bonus that we get from the support of our donor community is often enough to take us over the bar … we’re here to make a difference and, with the right partners, we can make a big difference.”
Donations to the university can run the gamut, from a $258,000 homogenizer-pasteurizer donated in April to the College of Food, Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, to a $39 million gift in September from the Stanton Foundation to OSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine.
Research donations account for the largest sum of contributions in the past fiscal year, totaling about $147 million. Such donations help fund projects that can lead to scientific breakthroughs such as one OSU announced Monday, during which researchers discovered a way of turning skin cells into any type of cell the body might need using a silicon chip.