Central New Mexico Community College announced what it calls its “most ambitious fundraising campaign in … history,” seeking $20 million by 2020, and announced it already has commitments for almost $11 million of that goal.
CNM’s Step Up Campaign – a combined effort for CNM, the CNM Foundation and CNM Ingenuity – is seeking to raise the money to support initiatives focused on graduating more students, improving the quality of the workforce and generating economic development, the school said in a news release.
“CNM will be using the funds raised to support strategic initiatives that will help us increase CNM’s positive impacts on our community and workforce,” CNM President Katharine Winograd said in a statement. “We hope that our community will support us in this important cause.”
CNM officials said they have been in a silent phase of the campaign for the past year and already raised $10.8 million toward the $20 million goal.
Some of the initiatives that the Step Up Campaign funds will support include:
⋄ Graduation: CNM is aiming for 15,000 associate degrees and certificates awarded each year through 2020.
⋄ Student Work Experience: CNM wants to provide 100 percent of CNM students with work experience prior to graduating.
⋄ Business Incubations: Aiming to significantly increase business incubations to spur economic development.
⋄ Job Creation: Helping businesses create 500 new jobs in New Mexico by 2020.
⋄ Job Placement: CNM seeking to get 90 percent of graduates employment in their field of study.
⋄ Increase Military Veteran Student Graduations: Aiming to help 1,000 veterans graduate each year through 2020.
This effort also is believed to be the largest fundraising campaign in the country for a community college, notwithstanding capital campaigns that seek to fund the construction of buildings, CNM said.
