UNC Sets Record for Annual Giving

The total represents the fourth straight year that UNC has set a giving record. In fiscal 2006, the school obtained $239 million in gifts.

The campus also had 100,000 donors, its most ever, in the year ended June 30, officials said.

"This is an historic year for Carolina," Paul Fulton, a member of the university's Board of Trustees and co-chair of the Carolina First Campaign Steering Committee, said in a statement. "We're immensely grateful to our donors. They value what Carolina does for students and society and understand how important private gifts are to furthering our mission."

The recent giving helped UNC reach its $2 billion goal for the Carolina First Campaign. The campaign, which began in 1999 and ends this December, now has $2.2 billion in commitments, including pledges and gifts.

Highlights of the year included a $50 million commitment from Dennis and Joan Gillings to support the School of Public Health and a $21.3 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop effective, inexpensive drugs to treat late-stage African sleeping sickness and visceral leishmaniasis.

Commitments in 2007 helped the university create 18 endowed professorships and 114 undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships.