Philanthropy vital to college says Cottey's Rogers

Editor's note: This is the second of a multi-part series covering "High Impact Philanthropy, a 360-Degree View of Planned and Major Gift Fundraising," a day-long training session at Cottey College in Nevada.

Nevada Daily Mail

Visitors, speakers and those in attendance for the "High Impact Philanthropy" seminar at Cottey College got an introduction to the school from President Judy Rogers as she welcomed those attending the day-long event that drew attendance from businesses, charities, and higher education institutions.

Dr. Rogers gave a brief history of the college, an update on what's happening today at the school, and just why philanthropy was and remains so important to educational institutions like Cottey.

Originally begun as a small liberal arts women's college offering two-year degrees, Cottey now offers six associate degree programs and six baccalaureate degrees.

"We are the only college for women supported by women and owned by women," Dr. Rogers said, referring to the P.E.O. (Philanthropic Educational Organization) Sisterhood, an organization of some 240,000 women that owns the school.

Quoting from the P.E.O. newsletter, Rogers told those in the audience that philanthropy is designed to "improve the material, social and spiritual welfare of humanity through charitable activities."

Noting the school was founded in 1884 by Virginia Alice Cottey and later, in 1920, gifted to the P.E.O., today the college holds 14 buildings and takes up 11 city blocks, with 33 acres, including an undeveloped wooded recreation area.

The school has a capacity for 350 resident students.

"Today, our student body represents 40 states and 20 different countries. The faculty and staff of 165 represent seven countries."

Cottey has a $14 million annual budget.

The college embarked on a major fundraising drive with a $35 million goal. During the past four and a half years, Cottey has reached that total, Dr. Rogers said.

"Fifty four percent of our budget comes from philanthropy so this is extremely important," she said.

The campaign targeted scholarships, additional faculty chairs, library enhancements needed for the expansion of four-year degrees, and the construction of a fine arts instructional building.

The scholarship portion of the fundraising effort has been very successful, exceeding its part of the goal.

Yet, more work needs to be done raising money for the fine arts building, she said, adding the effort was ongoing.

"We need these funds to bring all of our arts programs together under one roof," she said of the effort at constructing the new fine arts building.

It is estimated to take approximately $9 million for that building project, with about $300,000 more needed to start construction.

"We're still short of our three middle goals," Dr. Rogers continued, adding the fundraising campaign was due to continue to Jan. 31.

"We will meet these unmet goals," she said confidently of the funding effort for the new building, the library enhancements and the additional faculty chairs.

"We've had 19,000 donors thus far, and of those, 9,000 are new."

"We may be a small college but we are making ourselves known nationally.

"We've held over 95 awareness events across the United States and Canada," Dr. Rogers said of the fundraising effort.

"It's been a remarkable learning experience."

School officials will be "happy to share what we've learned," she told those business, charity, civic and community and educational institutions on hand for the seminar.

As the beneficiaries of these local and national philanthropic efforts, she encouraged attendees to "visit with any of our students. We believe you will be pleasantly surprised," by the quality of the students attending Cottey and of their depth and breadth of knowledge and inquisitiveness.

"We're happy to open our campus. We encourage you to walk our campus, visit our buildings and see what we have to offer."