UCA NOW Campaign

UCA Reaches a Historic Milestone with the UCA Now Capital Campaign

The University of Central Arkansas reached a historic milestone raising more than $109 million with the UCA Now campaign.
Remarkably, the campaign, which ran throughout the uncertainty of a pandemic, was able to not only surpass its ambitious goal but also successfully finish 10 months ahead of schedule.

The triumphant ending of the UCA Now campaign came as part of a three-part announcement on Thursday, Sept. 7.
“When we set out to raise $100 million by June of 2024, we knew that we were raising the bar for UCA,” said UCA President Houston Davis.

The UCA Now campaign was originally set as an aggressive $100 million, eight-year comprehensive fundraising effort beginning with a quiet phase in fiscal year 2017. The campaign was framed around four primary fundraising objectives – or pillars.

Campaign Pillars

A study of the campus identified and prioritized needs that included growing endowed scholarships and faculty support, new buildings for fine and performing arts, as well as health sciences, along with strengthening unique programs and partnership opportunities. These top needs became the four pillars of the campaign: Success, Culture, Wellness, and Excellence.

In 2019, UCA announced its largest-ever gift of $20 million from the Windgate Foundation to jump start fundraising for the fine and performing arts building that would eventually be named in their honor.

A year later, Conway Regional Health System made a $2.5 million commitment in support of the Integrated Health Sciences Building followed by a $1 million gift from the Sunderland Foundation.

The initial planning and execution of the campaign, including securing the historic gift from the Windgate Foundation, was led by Kale Gober ’09, former vice president for University Advancement. Following his departure in early 2020, Mary Bane Lackie was appointed to the role and led the team to a historic fundraising record.

“The pillars helped us focus our fundraising efforts,” Lackie said. “We knew that the fine and performing arts had outgrown their space and integrating the health sciences would better prepare our graduates to make a positive impact in their fields after graduation. We also wanted to focus on building support with the future in mind. Strengthening endowments, unique programs and partnerships were key to that success.”

Fundraising through the Pandemic

“We learned very quickly that we had to be extremely flexible with everything we did in 2020 and 2021,” Lackie said. “It was the resilience of our whole advancement team that allowed us to carry on.”

By May 2020, university officials recognized that the kickoff planned for September needed to be rescheduled. Seven months later, the pandemic lingered, but with safety protocols in place, UCA went forward with the public kickoff outdoors at the Harding Centennial Plaza in April of 2021.

“A lot of schools shut down during the pandemic, and we launched the public phase of our campaign,” Lackie said. “When we did events, we had a lot of protocols and we always had to be extremely flexible.” Face masks and pre-packaged snacks were key features of the 2021 public kickoff.

UCA’s fundraising, and overall donor participation, continued to be strong throughout the pandemic as more than $10 million was raised each year and the number of donors continued to grow.

“I realize, looking back, how generous people were during the pandemic, even in the face of uncertainty,” Lackie said. “It was phenomenal that people still came together to care about our students and support UCA.”

Surpassing the Goal

In May of 2023, after learning about an institution-defining program that UCA was nearly ready to launch, the Windgate Foundation provided a gift of $10 million to help launch the program in fall 2024. The program, “UCA Commitment,” is a last-dollar scholarship program aimed at creating a debt-free pathway for Arkansas students whose household income is less than $100,000 annually.

“We are making careful choices about the budget we have,” Davis said. “At the same time, there has been a collective dialogue on our campus about the fact that we know families are struggling to pay for higher education and there is great discouragement that comes when someone sees they cannot address that unmet need for one year, let alone four years.”

Since his arrival in 2017, Davis has led the university in a careful financial planning strategy called the Resource Optimization Initiative, which makes certain that every dollar that flows through the budget has a name and a function.

As Davis and university leaders built a plan that would not only leverage the university’s existing resources to meet budgetary demands but also make certain that students are claiming all of their eligible aid, the Windgate Foundation liked what they saw and decided to invest in the program.

“The Windgate Foundation’s gift of $10 million in fiscal year 2023 was not about pushing the UCA Now campaign over the goal,” Davis continued. “Their gift was the wind in our sails that prompted us to immediately launch this vision for a debt-free degree pathway. The fact that it helped push UCA Now over its goal and allowed us to end the campaign nearly a year early was just a bonus.”

By the Numbers

Impact in Action

The UCA Now campaign has impacted every area of the university, bringing positive historic change of which everyone can be proud.

In the Health Sciences, the new Integrated Health Sciences Building (IHSB) has provided the needed space so that an additional 50 future nurses can enroll in that school each year, allowing UCA to graduate 125 nurses annually.

The Community Care Clinic along with the Speech-Language-Hearing Center inside IHSB serves more than 1,000 clients annually and provides more than 7,000 hours of therapy, screening and evaluation. These centers also provide health sciences students with countless experiential learning opportunities.

The Windgate Center for Fine and Performing Arts has state-of-the-art performance spaces that foster new, collaborative partnerships. UCA has a thriving Artists in Residence Program and Public Appearances Series that now includes shows in the Windgate Center as well as Reynolds Performance Hall.

The new facility is strengthening the creative economy by attracting more students, faculty and patrons, all while elevating the cultural experience in Central Arkansas.

UCA built on its foundation of excellence by strengthening and expanding unique programs and partnerships that set the university apart. The nationally recognized Honors College expanded into two programs: the Schedler Honors College and University Scholars Program, further developing citizen-scholars ready to lead social change.

The university expanded internship and service-learning opportunities with business partners and organizations throughout the state, ensuring our students are well-prepared for success after graduation.

Additionally, support for student-athletes helped them succeed on the field and in the classroom, continuing a tradition of excellence that makes all alumni proud to be Bears.

The UCA Foundation’s endowment grew by more than $17 million over the course of the campaign to an incredible $52 million. This includes the establishment of 114 newly endowed scholarships and 15 new faculty and programmatic endowments.

The success of UCA Now means more than $1.5 million in privately funded scholarships are awarded annually.

Just the Beginning

While there was no doubt that the UCA Now campaign would meet, and likely exceed, its $100 million goal by June 30, 2024, the launch of UCA Commitment provided an exceptional opportunity to celebrate the ending early.

“Fundraising at UCA will certainly continue,” Lackie said. “We continue to have many needs across all areas of campus and continuing to build our endowment will only make the university stronger and allow more students the opportunity to fulfill their educational and career goals and dreams. As President Davis said on Sept. 7, ‘This is just the beginning.’”