UW-Madison received more fundraising contributions than any other Big Ten school in 2007. The university raised $325.3 million in funds, according to a survey by the Council for Aid to Education.

The contributions to the UW Foundation were up 7 percent from 2006, though contributions to UW-Madison as a whole have dropped by a slight .2 percent, according to Sandy Wilcox, president of the UW Foundation.

The UW Foundation receives gifts from dedicated alumni for research, Wilcox said.

“The other part of it is we have momentum,” Wilcox said. “We’ve been at it for a while.”

UW-Madison ranked 13 out of the top 20 fundraising institutions in the amount of funds raised, according to the survey. Stanford University and Harvard University ranked the highest with $832.3 million and $614 million raised in 2007, respectively.

“Their students arrive as freshmen much wealthier than our students,” Wilcox said.

Wilcox said gifts and grants are about equal to state support in terms of the percentage included in UW-Madison’s budget.

Wilcox said it would be important for the next UW-Madison chancellor to deal directly with current donors like Chancellor John Wiley has in the past. Gifts to the top 20 colleges and universities have increased by 6.3 percent but alumni gifts have declined, according to the survey.

The contributions received are important for endowing chairs and scholarships, according to Ann Kaplan, director of the annual Voluntary Support of Education Survey at the CAE.

Kaplan said UW-Madison received more money in contributions than smaller institutions because it has more things to raise it for, such as the medical school. However, small liberal arts colleges receive proportionally more money than larger universities.

When institutions raise more money in a particular year, it is most likely because they are working toward a specific campaign goal.

Kaplan suggested colleges and universities focus their efforts on alumni rather than corporations. “People have control over their assets,” Kaplan said. “They make charitable gifts.”

Universities are working on building better relationships with alumni to encourage them to give donations, Kaplan said.

“The thing that we would advocate for is making better records and engaging them in the institution as a whole,” Kaplan said.