The Donald W. Reynolds Foundation announced Friday a new donation of $10 million to the School of Journalism.
The newest donation will be used to fund faculty endowments for salaries, research and fellowships.
“We believe that (the Reynolds Journalism Institute) has begun creating the future of a better journalism for democracy by trying a lot of stuff: new technologies, new techniques and new approaches to connect citizens with the excellent journalism they need to survive and thrive,” said Dean Mills, School of Journalism dean.
Mills said the donation will allow the school to continue to attract the professional faculty it needs to keep it the world’s best journalism school.
However, not all of the donation will become immediately available.
The foundation is set to close in late 2017 and the school will receive the full gift in 2021, when the foundation distributes the rest of its assets.
The terms of the donation have also made it possible for the school to receive $200,000 from third parties who want to contribute to faculty fellowships. After 2021, MU will be able to give more than $400,000 to each faculty fellowships.
“It’s a long term strategy, we won’t see it’s full effect until after 2021, but it will start providing money to increase the faculty salaries and other faculty work within the next few years,” Mills said.
The foundation has been involved with MU for over 25 years, and the latest gift brings the total donation from the foundation to more than $100 million. Previous donations from the foundation were used to fund building operations, construction and endowments that improved the School of Journalism.
Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin said the donations from the foundation have allowed the school to adjust to a changing world and maintain its premier status as the world’s best journalism school.
“These gifts have been transformative in enabling the J-School to be very adaptable to make sure students like you who come here get the education just exactly right for their future trajectory for a career in journalism,” he said. “So it’s been extraordinarily visionary on their part to sustain this school of journalism not just as it has been, but as it should be in the future.”
By the end of 2017, the foundation will have donated more than $2 billion for institutions and non-profit organizations across the country.
“It seems almost fitting to me that the very last grant the foundation will pay will be to fund this grant for faculty scholarships to the journalism school,” said Steven Anderson, president of the foundation.
Anderson said one of the reasons the foundation continues to support the School of Journalism is due to its relationship with the school.
“Our ongoing support to (MU) is not just because of Mr. Reynolds’s association with the campus…that long term relationship is based on each completion and successful proposal that they have submitted to the foundation,” he said.
The foundation was founded in 1954 by Donald W. Reynolds to promote journalism and other educational services.
“Our foundation has always been terminal by design (and was) never intended to last forever as long as people who knew Mr. Reynolds were around to operate the foundation,” Anderson said. “It has helped us to provide additional funding above and beyond what we normally would be able to do if we had been a perpetual foundation.”
