Oregon State University Foundation

The Oregon State University Foundation is an American private nonprofit corporation dedicated to enhancing the mission of Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon.^[1] The OSU Foundation is governed by a volunteer Board of Trustees.^[2]

In 1947, Robert M. Kerr, Edwin B. Aldrich and E. C. Sammons established the Oregon State College Foundation with the aid of OSC President A. L. Strand.^[3] They saw the foundation as a means of creating opportunities that the college could not fulfill with state funds alone. That year they collected the OSC Foundation's first donation, a sum of five dollars.

The university's endowment began with $20,000 in 1961. It took 16 years to reach its first $1 million in total receipts, and four more years to double that amount. Today the university's composite endowment totals more than $505 million, ^[4] with earnings distributed annually.

With university leaders, the OSU Foundation publicly launched Oregon State's first comprehensive fundraising campaign, The Campaign for OSU, on October 26, 2007, with a goal of $625 million.^[5] Donors exceeded the original goal in October 2010, nearly a year ahead of schedule, and the goal was increased to $850 million. In March 2012 the goal was raised to $1 billion.^[6] At OSU's annual State of the University address in Portland on January 31, 2014, President Edward J. Ray announced that campaign contributions had passed $1 billion, putting Oregon State with a group of 35 other public universities to cross the billion-dollar fundraising mark and one of only two organizations in the Pacific Northwest to reach the $1 billion campaign milestone.^[7][8][9] The Campaign for OSU concluded on December 31, 2014, with more than $1.1 billion from 106,000 donors.^[10][11]

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