Georgetown fundraising reached record levels this year, but administrators say there is still work to be done to increase the size of the endowment and financial aid.

The university raised $109 million in cash gifts and $146 million in gift commitments this past fiscal year, which ended on June 30, according to William O’Leary, associate vice president for marketing and communications.

Cash gifts set an all-time record this year, surpassing the previous record of $105 million in cash gifts received in the previous fiscal year.

While this year’s gift commitments amounted to considerably more than the previous few years, it fell short of the $146.8 million record set four years ago during the university’s last major fund raising campaign.

“Increasing philanthropy to Georgetown is a key component of President DeGioia’s strategy to strengthen the university’s finances and be able to make important investments in faculty, facilities and financial aid,” O’Leary said.

O’Leary said that after a “dip” in fundraising in 2006, the university spent over two years preparing for this most recent campaign.

“Beginning in fiscal year 2006, Advancement brought in Vice President James Langley, and began rebuilding and preparing for the next fund raising campaign,” he said. We have worked hard with the all the academic units to understand their priorities and needs.”

O’Leary went on to say that the Office of Advancement conducted extensive research as it planned for last year’s campaign.

“The fund raising success is due in large part to matching university needs with donor interest,” he said. “Many of our alumni love Georgetown and tell us that Georgetown had a profound impact on their lives, but to get them to `invest’ in the university, we must share a vision for the future of the university and demonstrate how their gift will have an impact. Last year’s results are beginning to show the impact of this approach.”

Langley, vice president for advancement, said that he believes that misconceptions among alumni about the future of the university may have limited their willingness to contribute to Georgetown in the past.

“When I arrived, we had done market research to see how alumni perceived the university and we found some misconceptions that we corrected,” he said. “We found that there had been some miscommunications about where the university is going.”

Langley added that in recent years, the Office of Advancement has worked to improve communication with alumni.

“We also created an online function with highly targeted information for alumni, including facts and figures about the university,” he said.

O’Leary and Langley both said that improving financial aid is a high priority for the Office of Advancement.

“Increasing financial aid is our number one objective,” Langley said. “It is increasingly important as tuition increases.”

Last year, Georgetown awarded more than $83 million in aid to both undergraduate and graduate students.

“This is a necessary expense, but a strain on the university budget,” O’Leary said. “By focusing on financial aid as a need, the university raised $32.5 million last year up from $12.1 million just two years ago.”

Langley also emphasized the importance of continuing to grow Georgetown’s endowment, which hit the $1 billion mark last November, but is still only ranked 73rd in the nation.

“Every other top-25 university has an endowment ranked in the top 30 by size,” O’Leary said. “In fiscal year 2008, 32 percent of the funds raised went to the endowment.”

The Office of Advancement has said that its goal is to commit 40 percent of next year’s fundraising to the endowment.

“The university is preparing for its next fund raising campaign, and the fund raising results from fiscal year 2008 are an important step toward forward,” O’Leary said. “There is much more work to do in the years ahead, but we understand how critical philanthropy is to Georgetown continuing its tradition of academic excellence.”

“