I have been thinking about transformational giving. The gifts that come at the right time, for the right reasons, and have an extraordinary impact. Sometimes those gifts are scholarships, big or small, that fund the right student at the perfect time. Sometimes those gifts are for the veterinary hospital’s Good Samaritan Fund, helping those pets and their families who need some support. Sometimes they are fully discretionary and permit the college to invest in a new idea, a new person, a new project. But my favorite this month are estate gifts that result from deep, long-term relationships, engagement, and planning. We received an estate gift this past month that will fund research in a truly transformational way.
Research can be a frustrating investment. As scientists and funders alike know, the work doesn’t always pan out. There are small steps forward that eventually lead to a great leap, but that leap, when the data align and illuminate, is hard to predict. It takes patience, collaboration, and, sometimes, deep pockets. The estate gift that just arrived will provide $170,000 each year specifically for diseases and health problems of dogs and cats. The donors were passionate pet people, and this was their dream. We have many small pots of money for research focused on companion animals, and they matter. Now, combined with this gift, we can invest in teamwork and collaborations with industry and foundation partners that could result in diagnostics and therapies with broad relevance for the veterinary community. We can help sustain staffing and the equipment necessary to run larger clinical trials. We can consider what the most strategic investments would be each year, and they could be different. We could invest the full amount on one large project, or we could provide substantial funding for 3 or 4 projects.
Large estate gifts open doors at interesting times. And this is, indeed, an interesting and critical time for research investment as chaotic disinvestment in research at the federal level leaves holes that neither the state nor the university can fill. Just as with human medicine, research that brings forward new cancer treatments, new approaches to antibiotic resistance, and new anti-viral therapies (to name just a few) doesn’t happen without focused investment in veterinary research. Thank you to all who believe and invest.
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Be safe, healthy, happy, and stay hopeful. As I said on my first day on the job, the future is bright.
Take care and Go Cougs!