Welcome to the 2024 Honor Roll of Donors. As in years past, you’ll need your VMI Ranks login to view the lists in order to protect the privacy of donors.
A Letter from the CEO | Highlights of Giving | Stories of Your Impact | Donor Rolls
One of the common characteristics of the members of the VMI family is their willingness to join the effort that provides the private financial support that is essential to the Institute’s advancement. This is not a new phenomenon. Alumni began giving money for scholarships in the 1850s. In 1917, VMI conducted the A Day of VMI fundraising campaign in which it asked alumni to help fund the construction of the facilities necessary to host the horses of the newly established ROTC unit by donating the equivalent of a day’s earnings. Hundreds of alumni participated in this campaign, including then-Capt. George C. Marshall, Class of 1901, who gave $10, the rough equivalent of $245 today.
Over time, private financial support has become increasingly important to VMI. For more than two decades, money from the VMI Alumni Agencies has constituted roughly one quarter of the Institute’s operating revenues. In Fiscal Year 2024, private support made up $29.9 million of VMI’s budget. Almost every element of the Institute’s extraordinary education was touched by this money. For example, more than $12.4 million—or 41.5%—of it went to enhancing the academic program, and another $3.2 million—or 10.7%—was used to enhance the compensation of our talented and dedicated faculty. It is important to note that one of the Institute’s long-term goals has been to increase faculty salaries to recruit, retain, and reward top-flight professors. It has done so through an effective and dedicated collaboration of VMI leadership and the VMI Alumni Agencies, as well as the Agencies’ consistent engagement of donors through such means as the Jackson-Hope Fund and the Peay Endowment for Academic Excellence. Thanks to this focused effort, VMI has moved from 12th place among Virginia’s public colleges and universities in terms of average faculty compensation to sixth place.
Other funds were earmarked for enriching the cadet experience by bolstering VMI’s leadership and ethics programs, providing spiritual support to the Corps, and helping Preston Library and VMI’s museums provide the very best of services to the VMI community.
As it has for more than 160 years, the lion’s share of the funds from the VMI Alumni Agencies went to scholarship support. Almost 45% of the money—more than $13.4 million—provided hundreds of cadets with merit- and need-based scholarships, athletic scholarships, and other forms of financial aid. No matter its nature—no matter whether it was generated by immediate gifts or established endowments—this money serves the same common and noble purpose: It allows deserving young people to take up the challenges of being a cadet and experience an extraordinary education that prepares them to pursue consequential lives of honorable success, selfless service, and principled leadership.
While I am pleased to provide these impressive facts about private support at VMI, the focus of this publication is our donors—the thousands of alumni, friends, faculty, staff, coaches, and families whose generosity, loyalty, and vision is the source of this support. As they have in past years, they came forward with millions of dollars in gifts and commitments this year. All told, their gifts and commitments totaled $25.4 million.
Every donor has his or her reasons for giving to VMI. Some alumni give as a form of “paying back” VMI for what it did for them. Parents, who often see the value of a VMI education before their cadets do, want the Institute to have the same effect on other young people as it did on their children. Whatever motivates them to give to VMI, they all firmly believe that VMI and its graduates are truly special, a cut above the norm, and the citizen-leaders our country always needs to maintain our security and enhance our prosperity and always looks to in times of crisis and challenge. Everyone associated with the VMI Alumni Agencies—volunteer leaders, officers, and staff members—are grateful for their decision to join the ranks of our donors in Fiscal Year 2024. Regardless of the amount they gave or where they directed their donations, they have a profound influence on the Institute and the lives of the young people in barracks. I hope they take more than a little honest pride in that and the legacy they are establishing for themselves.
David L. Prasnicki
Chief Executive Officer
VMI Alumni Agencies
In support of the extraordinary educational experience that VMI provides, donors contributed $25.4 million in gifts and commitments during Fiscal Year 2024. Their generous gifts will ensure VMI continues to lead the way academically, athletically, and in its co-curricular programs.
In Fiscal Year 2024, more than a quarter of VMI’s budget came from private sources. This enduring generosity from the VMI family provides millions of dollars in private money every year and forms an underpinning of resources on which VMI cadets can rely.
In Fiscal Year 2024, alumni comprised the majority of donors, but a significant number of other members of the VMI family also gave.
Here are some of the ways that the Institute used the millions of dollars that the VMI Alumni Agencies provided as demonstrated in the fiscal year 2024 budget.
The generosity of the VMI family—past and present—touches the lives of hundreds of cadets every year. One way it does so is through full and partial scholarships. In Fiscal Year 2024, hundreds of cadets again received full and partial scholarships of all types.
Like many incoming rats, Justin Topping ’11 chose VMI for more than one reason—and like many alumni, he now has many reasons he’s thankful he chose the Institute.
It’s an awfully long way from a chicken processing plant in central Pennsylvania to the Turman Room in Preston Library, the meeting place of the VMI Board of Visitors—and the distance isn’t just measured in miles.
Please Note: All donor rolls are behind VMI Ranks and require a login to access.
