The LSU Foundation’s proposed building will be the first to be erected for the University’s Nicholson Gateway Project.
LSU Foundation director of Communications and Donor Relations Sara Crow said the proposed two-story building is part of a broader strategy to increase donations to the University, especially those to the endowment.
The LSU Foundation attracts and manages charitable donations to the University. The foundation’s office is currently located on West Lakeshore Drive.
The Nicholson Gateway Project will be a mixed-use center located on the last undeveloped tract of land on the University’s campus across from Tiger Stadium, as previously reported by The Daily Reveille.
Crow said although more donations to the LSU Foundation are non-endowed, “endowed donations are better because they provide perpetual aid.”
Crow explained that “99 percent of donations are donor directed,” meaning most of the time, donors will specify where their money will go. The new building, she said, will be financed through nondonor-directed donations
Because the building will be financed through nondonor-directed donations, the money will not be taken from money allotted for scholarships, Crow said.
The LSU Foundation’s website details the strategic plan that will direct its efforts: invest in people, redesign organization and operations, strengthen cross-campus collaboration and execute large-scale fundraising efforts. Crow said the new building will help achieve all four priorities. Currently, the LSU Foundation staff is scattered at four different places around campus, making it harder to coordinate fundraising efforts, Crow said. She said the new
building will help efforts on the back end, like IRS compliance, in addition to front-end efforts like attracting new donors.
The building’s proximity to Tiger Stadium and the prominence that comes with its location is a focal point for the LSU Foundation, Crow said.
She said peer organizations to the LSU Foundation at the University of Florida and Texas A&M University have fundraising buildings across from their respective football stadiums and attribute some of their success to the prominence the location gives them.
Crow pointed out these peers have much larger endowments than the LSU Foundation and hopes it can achieve the same kind of success. She said the LSU Foundation considers them a model in that regard.
The LSU Foundation is expected to break ground this summer with completion projected for 2016.