Sage Centennial Campaign raises $62M
Fundraising effort by far largest in colleges’ history
TROY, N.Y. >> The Sage Colleges announced Friday that its recently concluded Centennial Campaign for Sage raised $62,478,869, significantly surpassing its original $50 million goal.
The campaign, which coincided with the celebration of Sage’s 100th year, was the most successful fundraising effort in its history, easily dwarfing a 1994 Students & Scholars campaign that raised $17.3 million.
“I am delighted to begin my leadership at The Sage Colleges with the momentum from the Centennial Campaign,” said Christopher Ames, who joined Sage as its president in July. “This successful campaign has provided a solid foundation on which to implement a new strategic plan and sets the stage for Sage’s second century.”
Gifts to the campaign have been used to support initiatives across Sage campuses in both downtown Troy and Albany, including academic programs, facility upgrades and strengthening the endowment for student and campus needs. From 2011-17, gifts to the campaign created a total of $20 million in operating support, while 54 new endowment funds were created — including 39 endowed scholarship funds — that increased the Sage endowment value by 60 percent. In addition, 100 new estate and planned gifts will help ensure long-term financial stability.
The campaign also supported 34 major capital projects, including the purchase and renovation of the Armory at Sage College of Albany renovations to the Shea Learning Center library at Russell Sage College and significant upgrades to classrooms, labs and recreation facilities and beautification projects including gardens and the installation of significant sculptures on both campuses.
“The Centennial Campaign was one of my most important initiatives during my tenure at Sage,” said Susan Scrimshaw, who retired as president of the colleges in June. “I saw the positive impact on operations, the endowment, capital projects on both the Albany and Troy campuses and, ultimately, on Sage students.”
Leadership gift fundraising for the campaign began in 2011, and
the public phase kicked off in 2015, with a goal of raising $50 million by the conclusion of Sage’s Centennial celebration in 2017. In October 2016, Scrimshaw announced the campaign had surpassed its original goal, and she set a new goal of $60 million. The campaign concluded at the end of the Sage’s Centennial celebration and fiscal year on June 30.
“I am so grateful to the entire Sage community,” said campaign Chairwoman Donna Robinson Esteves, a Russell Sage alumnus who also previously chaired the colleges’ Board of Trustees. “Because of the generosity of
so many, we were able to raise far beyond what we initially imagined, continuing Sage’s journey into a bright second century.”
Besides being the most successful campaign in Sage’s history, the campaign included two of the largest single gifts ever to the institution: Esteves gave $12 million, including the initial $10 million gift that anchored the campaign, and Lucile Shea, who attended Russell Sage in 1937 and 1938 and left a $12 million bequest in her will.
Sage enrolls approximately 3,000 students in bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral programs at the undergraduate Russell Sage College for women in Troy, the coeducational undergraduate Sage College of Albany and the graduate-level Esteves School
of Education, School of Health Sciences and School of Management, with programs on both campuses
and online.
For more information about The Sage Colleges, visit www.sage.edu.