Fundraising for Fiscal Year 2014 Ahead of Schedule

POSTED ON: January 22, 2014

Fundraising for the FY14 campaign year is on track to exceed last year’s $10 million cash total. For the Annual Fund, cash receipts as of January 22, 2014, total $1.6 million, roughly 12 percent higher than at the same time a year ago. Other private giving has reached $6.4 million, for a grand total of $8 million at the midpoint of the fiscal year. 

In addition, The Cooper Union has received several major gifts thus far:

  • $2.4 million, the first distribution of an estate gift from Howard Betts (ME’49)
  • $1 million, representing a distribution from the estate of Elaine Flug (father: Isaac Allen [Ar’24])
  • $1 million from Martin Trust (ME’56) 
  • $150,000 grant from the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Trust
  • $100,000 gift from Kevin Burke (EE’72).

“We are fortunate to have alumni and friends who actively support The Cooper Union, its faculty and students,” said President Jamshed Bharucha. “Their philanthropy is crucially important at this moment in our history, as it expresses their trust in our ability as an academic community to meet and exceed the challenges of our time.”

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.