Welcome to our website

Our goal is to provide you with all the information you need to understand the mission, accomplishments, and ongoing initiatives of the Foundation. We also want to this website to improve our communications with all of our constituents.

The Foundation has been charged by the University System of Maryland with “strengthening the USM’s capacity to broaden access to high-quality higher education, meet the workforce needs of the state and the nation, and conduct research that expands the boundaries of knowledge.”

Our ability to carry out this mandate depends on the support and assistance of the individuals and groups in Maryland and across the nation who share those objectives. We are proud of all that we have been able to accomplish in our first three decades. The real measure of our success is the extraordinary progress that has been made by USM institutions in that period.

By all indicators—qualifications of incoming students and accomplishments of those students as they proceed to graduation; national rankings in a wide range of fields; research dollars awarded to and publications by the faculty—USM institutions have made a quantum leap forward.

Philanthropy has kept pace with the advances seen across the System. Private giving has increased 30-fold since the Foundation's inception thirty years ago. Our endowment now stands at $612 million (as of April 2009) as compared to $1.6 million in 1982 (the first year we recorded an endowment figure), and $72 million in 1988, the inaugural year of the University System of Maryland. The extra margin needed to achieve greatness in public universities requires more support than can be provided by public funds. With your help and generosity, that extra margin has been available and has been put to outstanding use.