NEW DELHI:
Indian Institute of Technology -Madras
(IIT-M) has created a record of sorts by raising funds to the tune of Rs 55 crore in the financial year of 2016-17.
The tech school has also managed to reverse a historic trend of 70% of the donors being from the US in the past. The majority of donors this year have been from India. The institute now aims at building a large unrestricted endowment fund to the tune of Rs 500 crore by the year 2020.
According to IIT-M's “Annual Giving Report 2016“, not only the total contribution has exceeded '55 crore for the first time, the receipts from India based donors and corporate is 70%. The IIT has also managed crowd funding to the tune of `75 lakh via social media platform. The institute has also recorded a consistent increase in new donors from 37 in 2009 to 1,827 in 2016.
The major contributions from the alumni have come for visiting and institute chairs, infrastructure, CSR projects, research projects, workshops and healthcare innovation.
According to professor R Nagarajan, dean of international and alumni relations, IIT-M, connecting with the alumni and corporates started in a structured manner in 2009. In eight years, the fund raising activity yielded significant growth from Rs 10 million in 2009 to Rs 550 million in 2016.
Terming it as another watershed year for IIT-M, Nagarajan said: “Our alumni network and other linkages have been growing significantly in the last few years. In fact, the growth of contribution between 2015 and 2016 has been Rs 7 crores. We started connecting with the alumni in 2009, build trust, reconnect them to their alma mater and convince them that their contribution will make a real difference.“
Traditionally, alumni associations in India do not engage in fund raising. Their primary responsibility is to build the network. But IIT-M has successfully made the transition of taping alumni for fund raising.
Taking a cue from the model practiced in the West, primarily from the US universities, IIT-M is now planning to raise Rs 500 crores by 2020 as endowment, “which means the principal amount will remain intact and the income generated through interest will be used for developmental activities,“ added Nagarajan. IIT-M Foundation has set up its office in the
San Francisco Bay Area
to raise endowment fund.
As reported in TOI first, among the top donors are
Silicon Valley-based
alumni,
Anand Rajaraman
and
Venky Harinarayanan
, who have donated $1million to create a corpus that will fund Visiting Chairs in computer science and engineering to lead research on data-driven approaches to solve important problems.
The Visiting Chairs will enhance teaching and research efforts, and help attract outstanding young faculty, students, research scholars and postdoctoral fellows to the
CSE Department
at the IIT.
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