Donna Brace Ogilvie ’30, Honorary Co-Chair of the Campaign for Andover, recently pledged $5 million to help establish a financial aid endowment in upcoming years.
Ogilvie’s contribution goes toward the Capital Campaign, Andover’s initiative to raise $300 million dollars. Since July 2006, the school has collected a total of $195 million, according to Secretary of the Academy Peter Ramsey.
The campaign is expected to support the school’s budget until the end of fiscal year 2014-2015.
$41 million has been raised toward the $65 million goal for financial aid.
The money donated towards financial aid will help support the need-blind initiative proposed by the Board of Trustees in Andover’s 2004 Strategic Plan.
“Mrs. Ogilvie, along with Mr. Underwood, is the honorary co-chair of the Campaign for Andover and is an enormous benefactor of the school,” Ramsey said.
“It is because of her role that she has been having conversations with us about her contribution to the Campaign and its progress,” he continued.
Luanne Kirwin, Director of Development in the Office of the Academy Resources (OAR), said the news of Ogilvie’s contribution first went public in the January 2010 issue of The Andover Magazine.
According to Ramsey and Kirwin, Ogilvie’s pledge is part of the $15 million that has been gifted or pledged to the Campaign since it went public last November.
Some of the Campaign’s money allocated towards financial aid may not be used immediately, since the contributions are a mixture of pledges and gifts.
Kirwin said gifts are directly incorporated into the endowment, and later used for financial aid when the Board of Trustees create the budget. On the other hand, the pledges are incorporated as soon as the benefactors make the contributions.
The goal of the Campaign is to raise $300 million to help support the need-blind admissions policy, the Addison Gallery of American Art and the Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology.
The Campaign additionally aims to support campus preservation, community service initiatives and improve student and faculty life.
Ogilvie is the highest contributing female philanthropist in Andover’s history, having contributed over $15.4 million dollars to the school over her lifetime.
Ogilvie’s donations helped create The Brace Center for Gender Studies in 1996.
She also helped make possible the construction of Gelb Science Center, completed in 2004.
In addition, Ogilvie has also given gifts to teaching foundations, the Abbot Academy Association and the Abbot Campus Fund.
Kirwin said, “Through her philanthropy and the work of other Abbot alumnae, Abbot will remain alive forever. But she’s also a great believer of Andover and the merged schools.”
“Knowing Mrs. Ogilvie and having worked with her, with respect to her giving, is one of the real treats with being associated with Phillips Academy,” said Ramsey.
Ogilvie graduated from Abbot Academy in 1930 and is a benefactor of Girls Inc., a non-profit organization that provides educational opportunities to girls.
She also served on the Board of Trustees at Abbot Academy, the Campaign Steering committee at Andover and is now the Co-Head of the Campaign for Andover.
In 1997, Ogilvie received the Claude Moore Fuess Award for her public service. Ogilvie was also honored at the Campaign Kick-Off last November.
Kirwin said, “She is an extraordinary woman, honestly, she is a fantastic, brilliant, generous, really extraordinary woman.”
