NMC Announces ‘Largest Gifts Yet’ For Aviation Fundraising Campaign

Northwestern Michigan College (NMC) recently launched a $14 million fundraising campaign to pay for the in-progress expansion of its aviation division, and that fundraiser got a nice boost this week in the form of two sizable donations. The college announced on Friday that a pair of anonymous gifts – one of $150,000 and the other of $100,000 – represent the “largest gifts yet” for the fledgling fundraising campaign.

The campaign, dubbed “Next Level: The Campaign for NMC Aviation,” carries a fundraising goal of $14 million and “will be funded by a combination of government support, bonding, and private philanthropy,” per an NMC press release. That money will go toward a long-in-the-works expansion of the college’s aviation department, including an enlargement and modernization of the program’s aircraft hangar, the purchase of several new planes, and the relocation of aviation classrooms.

While $250,000 doesn’t sound like much in the scheme of a $14 million goal, the NMC Foundation – the college’s fundraising arm – shared that the private philanthropy side of the campaign will actually be significantly smaller. Already, NMC has received $3.75 million for the project from the state of Michigan, plus another $550,000 in federal funding. The private philanthropy goal for the campaign is only $1 million, and these two new gifts bring the Foundation near the 40 percent mark, with $390,000 in philanthropic gifts so far.

NMC officially broke ground on the hangar project in October.