Welcome to Fundraising Friday, AB Today's weekly digest of recent developments in development.
The University of Connecticut announced Wednesday a transformative $15 million commitment from alums and longtime supporters Denis and Britta Nayden that will establish The Nayden Center for Academic Excellence within the Bailey Student-Athlete Success Center. According to the announcement, this significant investment represents one of the largest private gifts in the university's history. The Nayden Center for Academic Excellence will serve as a cornerstone of UConn's commitment to student-athlete success. The $15 million gift will be dedicated to facility development, programming, and providing diverse services and endowed scholarships that will allow the student-athlete population to thrive, directly benefiting UConn student-athletes for generations to come. The Bailey Student-Athlete Success Center completely reimagines over 77,000 square feet of the existing field house footprint. The 12,000-square-foot academic center will become the home for holistic development, academic accomplishment, and wellbeing for UConn's nearly 600 student-athlete. This comprehensive space will facilitate learning, testing, meeting, tutoring and all academic activities.
The University of Central Florida recently announced a $500,000 commitment from the Scott and Ashley Frost family toward UCF Athletics’ newly launched Competitive Success Fund. This transformational gift from UCF head football coach and his wife will directly enhance UCF’s ability to recruit, retain and develop student-athletes as they compete at the highest levels, according to the university's April 10 announcement.
Nearest Green Distillery, an award-winning distillery based in Shelbyville, Tenn., announced Monday that it will give $300,000 to the Build Blue campaign at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro. This leadership gift propels the MTSU Athletics fundraising campaign to over $22 million. According to goblueraiders.com, the bar area in the SRM Concrete Club on the third floor of the new Student-Athlete Performance Center at Floyd Stadium will be named the "Uncle Nearest Bar" in honor of the distillery and will serve Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey.
Total amount of these gifts:
$15,800,000
Running total for 2025:
$308,948,500
Total amount tracked by AB Today in 2024:
$943,830,339
