About Capital Gifts
Capital gifts, generally to the physical plant or endowment, differ from annual support, which provides eight percent of the operating budget and thus is expended each year. Instead, capital gifts allow the School the opportunity to look to its long-term future.
Portsmouth Abbey has much to celebrate as a result of great accomplishments facilitated by capital giving during the last 5+ years. These achievements include:
- Construction of two major new buildings: McGuire Fine Arts Center and The Squash & Fitness Center
- Comprehensive renovation of the Stillman Dining Hall
- Completion of the outdoor all weather Araujo Track
- Renovation and establishment of new Student Center
- Installation of major technology upgrades (wireless network, faculty laptops)
- Establishment of Humanities Program and recommitment to Western Intellectual Tradition
- Funding of 42 new permanent endowment funds
- Completion of numerous infrastructure projects (leaching field, hockey rink, tree clearing)
Under the headings of People, Programs, Plant and Patronage the Strategic Plan ratified by Board of Regents in September 2003, charts a comprehensive and aggressive path for the years ahead. Of the plan David Moran '71 has written, "This Plan forms the guideposts by which we will lead the institution over the next seven to ten years . . . it forms the roadmap that Portsmouth Abbey will follow to attain its ambitious goals in all areas of school life." Fundamental to successfully achieving the objectives is securing the necessary financial support to nurture programs, sustain people and steward the campus.
As the Regents look ahead, there are areas that will need to be addressed through capital gifts. The clear facilities priorities during the next six years include:
- Constructing new Girls and Boys Houses to accommodate an increase in the boarding/day mix to >70%/30%
- Building additional detached faculty housing to attract and retain the best faculty, staff and administrators to the school
- Adding improved Science Center facilities and additional classroom space
- Completing needed restoration of the Church of Saint Gregory the Great
In parallel with these facilities the school must increase its endowment to support scholarships, faculty chairs and to become less dependent on tuition as its primary source of revenue.
This section of Portsmouth Abbey's Website provide a description of various methods of making significant gifts to the School, a list of currently available naming opportunities and prospective recognition spaces connected with future projects. Interested individuals are encouraged to speak with Patrick Burke '86, Director of Development.
