Nau gifts another $15M to Karsh as UVA hits $4.61B raised in Honor the Future campaign

Later this year, the Karsh Institute for Democracy at the University of Virginia will become the new home for various programs that are now part of the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service. 

Last week, the Karsh Institute received a second gift of $15 million from John Nau, bringing his total contribution to $30 million. That news was broken by President Jim Ryan at the Board of Visitors meeting last week. 

“It is good proof of the power of this idea,” Ryan said. “It is an idea that I know a number of you on the Board are encouraging us to pursue and that is to find a way to pull together all of the efforts around democracy so that they would have one home.” 

Martha and Bruce Karsh donated $50 million to begin work on the institute. 

Ryan said Nau’s gift allowed UVA to cross the $4.6 billion goal it had hoped to reach this fiscal year in an overall $5 billion campaign called Honor the Future. 

“We have been averaging $600 million a year in gifts and pledges over the last five years,” Ryan said. “We have two years left to go in the campaign and now we have about $400 million left before we hit the goal.” 

There have been over 700 gifts of over $1 million since the campaign began according to Mark Luellen, UVA’s vice president for advancement. 

Weldon Cooper programs that will soon be part of the Karsh Institute include the Virginia Institute of Government, the Sorensen Institute of Political Leadership, the Center for Survey Research, the Center for Economic and Policy Studies, and the Demographic Research Group. The latter provides the official population estimates and forecasts for the Commonwealth of Virginia. 

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