Kate Ostrowskihe University of Maryland, Baltimore’s (UMB) groundbreaking fundraising initiative, the $750 million Catalyst Campaign, has surpassed the important $500 million milestone, totaling $530 million raised by Feb. 1, 2020. This vital fundraising endeavor seeks gift support from alumni and friends to bolster a range of institutional priorities. Major initiatives include scholarships, faculty excellence, research, clinical initiatives, entrepreneurship, and community engagement.
Recent gifts include a $1.8 million commitment from a local family to support the UMB CURE Scholars Program, the new Community Engagement Center (CEC) in West Baltimore, an endowed nursing scholarship, and a new student exchange program in Costa Rica.
Rebecca T. Gyi-Hovis, MD, committed a gift of $750,000 to the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy (UMSOP) to establish the Felix A. Khin-Maung-Gyi Memorial Scholarship for Pharmapreneurship in honor of her late father, a UMSOP alumnus. A $193,000 bequest was made to benefit the School of Nursing. The Brain and Behavior Research Foundation awarded $150,000 to the School of Medicine. A local business executive made a $100,000 commitment to the new CEC, in addition to a Hearst Foundation grant to the CEC of $150,000. And more than $48,000 has been committed to rejuvenating the UMB-University of Haifa (Israel) Student Exchange Program.
The community’s generosity in support of UMB was truly encouraging in 2019 and continues to signal belief in the ability of UMB’s students, faculty, alumni, and staff to succeed. UMB Interim President Bruce E. Jarrell, MD, FACS, notes the importance of private sector support to the University.
“We’re fortunate to benefit from generous assistance from the state, which provides nearly 20 percent of UMB’s overall revenue,” Jarrell says. “The remainder of our budget is generated through research and training grants, clinical care, student tuition, auxiliary services, and philanthropy. Of all those sources of revenue, gift support is absolutely the most flexible source available to us. We’re redoubling our efforts — through the Catalyst Campaign — to invite charitable investment in the substantive UMB programs that improve the daily lives of Marylanders and countless others well beyond the state.”
The Catalyst Campaign is led by two UMB Foundation, Inc., board members who serve as co-chairs: Ellen H. Yankellow, PharmD ’96, the CEO of Correct Rx Services, and Brian J. Gibbons, JD ’87,
the CEO of Greenberg Gibbons Commercial. Yankellow and Gibbons invite you to visit one of UMB’s stellar professional schools, innovative BioPark, and our growing Community Campus in West Baltimore to experience firsthand the critical work we are doing.
For information on the Catalyst Campaign, contact Thomas J. Sullivan, CFRE, MS, chief philanthropy officer and vice president, at thomas.sullivan@umaryland.edu or 410-706-8489.
