Media Releases

The University of Toronto launches BOUNDLESS, its historic $2 billion fundraising campaign

November 20, 2011

TORONTO, ON – The Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to has unveiled Bound­less, the largest fundrais­ing cam­paign in Cana­di­an uni­ver­si­ty his­to­ry. With a his­toric $2 bil­lion goal, the Cam­paign for the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to will help expand U of T’s glob­al lead­er­ship capac­i­ty across crit­i­cal areas of knowl­edge and help devel­op the tal­ent, ideas and solu­tions for the defin­ing chal­lenges of our time.

Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to Pres­i­dent David Nay­lor made the announce­ment at a cer­e­mo­ny in Con­vo­ca­tion Hall at the down­town St. George cam­pus. With this new cam­paign, U of T will explore the bound­less pos­si­bil­i­ties of its com­mu­ni­ty of alum­ni, stu­dents and fac­ul­ty for glob­al lead­er­ship and soci­etal impact.

“Cana­da must have uni­ver­si­ties that can achieve two relat­ed goals: con­duct the advanced research that will help solve the grand chal­lenges human­i­ty now faces, and offer the best and bright­est stu­dents an excep­tion­al edu­ca­tion to help them build a bet­ter world. No uni­ver­si­ty in Cana­da is bet­ter posi­tioned to meet those objec­tives than the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to,” said Pres­i­dent Nay­lor.

The Campaign’s goal is $2 bil­lion in phil­an­thropic sup­port, of which near­ly half—$966 million—has been secured.  The Cam­paign has two cen­tral pil­lars:

-          Prepar­ing glob­al cit­i­zens will fos­ter inter­na­tion­al flu­en­cy and lead­er­ship skills among the University’s almost 80,000 under­grad­u­ate and grad­u­ate stu­dents – by rais­ing funds to sup­port stu­dent awards and build learn­ing envi­ron­ments that nur­ture cre­ativ­i­ty, col­lab­o­ra­tion, crit­i­cal think­ing, dis­ci­pli­nary excel­lence, inter­dis­ci­pli­nary inquiry and glob­al per­spec­tives.

-          Meet­ing glob­al chal­lenges will sup­port path-break­ing research and teach­ing that gen­er­ates solu­tions for healthy, sus­tain­able and suc­cess­ful soci­eties, while also strength­en­ing the essen­tial foun­da­tion of basic research. Funds raised will sup­port the University’s world-class minds, attract a new gen­er­a­tion of “ris­ing star” fac­ul­ty and make crit­i­cal enhance­ments to pro­grams and infra­struc­ture.

Notwith­stand­ing recent invest­ments in high­er edu­ca­tion in Ontario, U of T’s total rev­enue per full-time stu­dent is about 41 per cent low­er than the aver­age for pub­licly fund­ed peer insti­tu­tions in the U.S. “The fact that we are able to com­pete with—and in many cas­es outperform—our peers, both in Cana­da and around the world, speaks to the excel­lence of our stu­dents, fac­ul­ty and staff,” said Nay­lor. Over the last decade, U of T has con­sis­tent­ly ranked among the top 30 uni­ver­si­ties in the world—and con­sis­tent­ly among the top three for schol­ar­ly out­put.

The University’s pre­vi­ous cam­paign, which closed in Decem­ber 2003, raised $1 bil­lion and remains the most suc­cess­ful cam­paign in Cana­di­an his­to­ry. The cam­paign played a vital role in vault­ing the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to into the top ranks of uni­ver­si­ties world­wide. Now, near­ly eight years lat­er, the Uni­ver­si­ty is ready to build on this foun­da­tion, to advance ground­break­ing research and teach­ing, seize on new oppor­tu­ni­ties and broad­en our impact on the glob­al issues that mat­ter most to Cana­di­ans.

“This is an extra­or­di­nary mile­stone for the Uni­ver­si­ty,” said the Hon. David R. Peter­son, Chan­cel­lor of U of T.  “With input from across our com­mu­ni­ty, we have devel­oped an elo­quent, bold vision for a world-lead­ing uni­ver­si­ty in the 21st cen­tu­ry. We will look to our glob­al net­work of friends and alum­ni – who now num­ber more than 500,000 across 174 coun­tries – to join us in this excit­ing cam­paign. With their gen­eros­i­ty and involve­ment, we will work togeth­er on fun­da­men­tal ques­tions that will shape the course of human knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence and pre­pare our stu­dents for lead­er­ship in an increas­ing­ly bor­der­less world.”

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Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to Media Rela­tions
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