The Case for Alumni Support
The urgency of this moment in the College’s history provides NC State engineering alumni the opportunity to leverage and enhance the impact of giving. NC State University has committed increased funding for the College for its continued growth, and to support hiring additional faculty; the state of North Carolina has committed funding for new facilities and infrastructure. Building on that crucial support, alumni giving can transform the institution that helped to launch your career.
Your support is needed to grow the endowment, the base from which the College can achieve greatness. The college’s ascent honors the people who are the essence of this institution and who continue to define it: alumni, volunteer leadership, students, faculty, staff, and the citizens of the state of North Carolina.
What’s more, the scale of NC State as an engineering institution—the numbers of well-prepared graduates it propels into the workforce, the prowess of its research and effectiveness of its outreach efforts—extends the impact of your gift to advance not just the College, but engineering as a profession, as a means of solving problems for the benefit of society. And this is a crucial time for your profession. The engineering workforce is aging just as the need for highly qualified engineers expands with technology’s dramatic progress.
Giving back also benefits you as an NC State engineering degree holder. Participation of alumni in giving and in growing the endowment keeps NC State and the college competitive with our peer institutions and is tied to our reputation as an elite institution.
For instance, US News & World Report examines levels of alumni giving as a part of its all-important rankings formula—meaning that through giving you influence directly the value of your own degree. Corporations and foundations routinely look at alumni participation rates as an indicator of confidence in the institution before making their vital contributions to our institution.
The Board of Directors of the NC State Engineering Foundation has identified alumni participation as a core concern in helping the college achieve its vision. Currently, only 8 percent of NC State engineering alumni give back to the college. By comparison, 31 percent of Georgia Tech engineering alumni support their college. (The disparity in the rate of giving by alumni of NC State compared to that of peer land-grant institutions is illustrated in the benchmark charts.)
Many of the institutions with which NC State competes have made significant strides while NC State’s position has been more stagnant. Just twelve years ago, Georgia Tech was ranked number 10, and NC State was number 28. Maryland was 37 in the 1994 rankings, and has since jumped 22 spots to number 15 in just 12 short years. That kind of climb requires a cohesive effort among the volunteer leadership, administration, faculty, students, and you, the alumni.
The ranking system, though not perfect, both influences and reflects the decisions of potential students and faculty who will define the institution’s future. By giving, your generosity plays an important role in attracting and retaining the best and brightest, in making sure that the facilities in which they work and study are well-equipped and inspiring. We invite you to join us in the College’s climb through the rankings, to give back, and to shape and brighten the future of NC State Engineering.
Content on this site is provided by the NC State Engineering Foundation, Inc.