Newsletter

Spring 2000: Notes from Pacific Rim

$500,000 Raised
Pacific Rim Campaign Receives Donations, Grant

The Campaign for Development of Au Sable-Pacific Rim is moving ahead strongly, with over $500,000 raised to date for the project.
Beyond $70,000 given or pledged by individuals, $450,000 has been given as corporate and foundation gifts for remodeling of existing buildings on 175 acres purchased by the institute in June, 1999, from the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife. The first major grant received was $200,000 from the M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust, in large part a response to the $70,000 that had come in as gifts and pledges from board members, faculty, staff, college and university representatives, student, alumni and friends of Au Sable.

The M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust seeks to enrich the quality of life in the Pacific Northwest through grants to organizations that seek to strengthen the region's educational and cultural base in creative and sustainable ways. It was created by the will of the late Melvin J. (Jack) Murdock, who was a co-founder of Tektronix, Inc., of Beaverton, Oregon, and a resident of Vancouver, WA.
To further support development of the new campus and to address the needs of the institute as a whole, the Au Sable Institute Board of Trustees increased the fund-raising goal for Pacific Rim from $1 million to $2 million and authorized an additional $3 million fund-raising campaign to help the entire institute make the transition from a single-campus to a multiple-campus institute whose capacity is more than doubling.
Au Sable's director, Cal DeWitt, points out that "growing by doubling means doubling the capacity, but does not instantly result in doubling of enrollments. It is a transition for which we can benefit from some outside help. What all of this means is that the institute is proceeding to find $5 million from funders in order to meet the transition needs. Funds are being sought not only to meet needs directly, but also to increase the Institute Endowment Fund. As the credibility the institute gains from all of its individual donors, many of them giving sacrificially, that undergirds the entire program of institute development."

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