After donating nearly $60 million to ASU academics, Ira A. Fulton has stepped onto a new playing field.
On Monday, Fulton and ASU Athletic Director Gene Smith announced "The Fulton Challenge," a matching-gift program in conjunction with the Sun Angel Foundation, an athletics department fundraising organization.
For one year, Fulton -- who attended ASU on a football scholarship and played on the team from 1951-52 -- will donate up to $1 million for student-athlete scholarships and other academic ventures in the athletic department.
Fulton will match donations from individuals who have never made a gift to the foundation and gifts from current and former student-athletes on a 2-to-1 basis, up to $5,000 per gift.
"He knows our troubles, he knows what we're challenged with," Smith said of Fulton. "He cares so much about the athletes. He doesn't want them to suffer."
Smith said his staff approached Fulton about two weeks ago with a presentation and was met with open arms.
Fulton said the challenge was not just a donation, but also an investment in student-athletes' futures. He added there is a chance to up the ante on the sharing program.
"If Gene gets this used up too fast, I'm a softy. I'll probably give them another million," Fulton said.
He posed a similar challenge to the Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering for the amount of $500,000 in July. That goal has already been surpassed in donations.
The engineering school has already garnered 12,000 new alumni donors to the engineering school. In the last six months, the school of engineering has had as many new alumni donors give to the school as they did in the previous year.
According to Mike Gallagher, chairman of the Sun Angel Foundation board of directors, the organization has a base of about 7,000 donors. The goal would be to increase that number to more than 10,000 following the challenge.
Smith said the foundation grossed about $7 million last year, a figure he hopes will more than double in the coming years.
"We need to get that well north of 15 to 20 million dollars," Smith said. He compared donations to ASU's athletic department to those at University of Florida and Florida State University, where yearly donations are well beyond the $20 million mark.
On March 14, the athletic department will start a vigorous letter-writing and telephone campaign to former student-athletes and about 11,000 former Sun Angel donors who have not given recently.
"I want to get the ones that haven't given in a couple of years," Fulton said. "I want to get them into a habit ... and being a part of this great organization."
Fulton also donated $300,000 in challenge grants this week to seven colleges at the University. The challenge grants function as money promised if the college raises the set amount.
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, which will receive $100,000, and the Herberger College of Fine Arts and the College of Law will receive two-thirds of the total donation.
The Barrett Honors College, the College of Education, the College of Nursing and the College of Architecture and Environmental Design would each receive $25,000.
Reach the reporters at jeffrey.hoodzow@asu.edu and at elias.arnold@asu.edu.
