As Santa Clara University announces the end of its billion-dollar Innovating with a Mission fundraising campaign, we are left to contemplate the meaning of a billion.
It’s a heck of a lot of money raised in just 10 years. But it’s more than that. It solidifies SCU as a national player— among Catholic university peers, only Boston College, Georgetown, and Notre Dame have raised more. We are on the main stage. And we belong here. Every year, SCU sends graduates of competence, conscience, and compassion into the world to live lives of meaning around the globe.
“A billion dollars is not just a financial giving milestone for Santa Clara; it’s a declaration from our global Bronco family that the world more than ever needs the mission, values, and academic excellence we have to offer,” says President Julie Sullivan.
It embodies something special created here on the Mission campus. A feeling, a community. It represents what this place gave to so many of us, long before the campaign was announced. In classrooms, among palms and roses—a grounding, a launchpad, knowledge, values, a family.
A billion dollars reflects the relationship more than 100,000 alumni have with this place, this Jesuit University in the middle of Silicon Valley. It includes gifts from parents and community members who aren’t Broncos by degree but are moved by our mission and our Mission.
It is the love we feel for Santa Clara and our community. And love is a transformational power.
Here’s some of how that love has transformed the University and enabled Broncos to make a greater mark on the world: A portion of the donations added modern space for the exploration of the sciences, the arts, and student life. Some of that billion will fund research that unites disparate fields to create new ways of thinking about and seeing the world. And this love supports new scholarships and increased mental health support. Learn more in the pages to come.
This moment of reaching a huge milestone isn’t a finish line. Santa Clara University is just getting started.
As this issue goes to press, a new strategic plan is being crafted, focusing on connecting us more deeply to our Silicon Valley home and strengthening our roots as the place for Jesuit education. By providing the education that transforms lives, we will continue to shape tomorrow.
And your love and support for this place, and for one another, will continue to guide us along the way.