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UNT Looks to Grow Fundraising to $50M

UNT Fundraising
UNT Campus | Image by UNT

As the new vice president of advancement at the University of North Texas, Brandon Buzbee will focus on keeping UNT affordable.

This goal will be to the benefit of all students, Buzbee said, regardless of the type of degree they are pursuing.

He will try to accomplish this feat by growing annual fundraising for the university by $20 million over the next five years.

UNT’s development office now draws in about $30 million each year, but Buzbee is hoping to raise that number to $50 million within the next five. While this may be a big jump, Buzbee believes this can be accomplished due to the money’s direct impact on students.

“As an individual who has built their career raising support for institutions, I can tell you that a dollar goes farther at UNT than in many, many institutions of higher learning around the country,” said Buzbee to the Denton Record-Chronicle. “A scholarship of $500 or $1,000 is the difference between students getting their degree at UNT and having to go home because there’s a family emergency, and they have to work to help their family.”

Since almost half of the alumni from UNT live in North Texas, Buzbee is hoping to receive some of their help. He said that the alumni of UNT are a strong group and that his department is hoping to strengthen its relationship with them.

“I got a chance to sit down with some of our most dedicated committed donors, many of whom live in Denton,” Buzbee said. “They expressed such a deep sense of belief in the future of the university and its importance in the context of Denton and where Denton is going and what’s happening. … Whether it’s the alumni association or through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, or through the art galleries that are out there, I think there are a lot of opportunities for that engagement.”

Buzbee joined UNT after commencement last year and previously worked in university advancement in Denver and San Diego. Now, Buzbee will work at UNT at a time of growth, which he said will help the university accomplish its goals.

“If you look over the past decade, at the rise that we’ve reached on our Tier 1 status, our research productivity has been on a pretty steep up-slope,” Buzbee said. “And over that same decade, the fundraising remained relatively flat. On average, we raised about $30 million annually.

“Two-thirds of that support was towards things like student service or student support. What you would expect at an institution is that the climb in research productivity and the climb in philanthropy should mirror one another.”

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