Blue confetti rained down on the Knapp Center, showering hundreds of Drake University donors and students as they celebrated the historic end to the Ones campaign. The three-year capital fundraising campaign raised $265 million, $40 million over its initial goal of $225 million. This total includes donations from 13,800 individual donors, 30% of whom are first-time donors.

“[Drake] has long been making a difference, and now we can go on making that difference because of all who have invested in this campaign,” Drake President Marty Martin said in his speech at the Francis Marion Drake Society Event, an annual dinner thanking donors. “In today’s world, that continuity and foundation are inspiring. It gives us a sense of confidence going forward. It gives the optimism that we need to confront the challenges of today.” 

The Ones campaign started in 2018 as a campus-wide initiative to determine Drake’s fundraising priorities. The administration started with 55 ideas and then consolidated them. John Smith, vice president for university advancement, said this was a unique process that prioritized faculty and staff ideas. These ideas turned into the six — and eventually seven — components of The Ones campaign: revitalizing democracy, enhancing the student experience, strengthening the heartland, leading with purpose, educating for a digital world, creating access to opportunity and transforming every day.  

“We made sure that our priorities and behaviors were going to center around the University’s inspirational statement that together, we transform lives and strengthen communities,” Smith said. 

For example, the Ron and Jane Olson Institute for Public Democracy has been an idea since the start of The Ones campaign that has come to fruition through Drake’s philanthropic efforts. The University brought together various groups that wanted Drake to offer more opportunities to engage with the United States’ democracy and refined their ideas until it eventually developed the elements and spirit of the Institute for Public Democracy. 

Then, it fundraised for the project. Ron and Jane Olson contributed a gift of $5 million, which led to the center’s name in honor of the couple. 

Smith said he celebrates this gift and all donations to the campaign because they benefit students. The campaign included scholarships and naming of the Zimpleman College of Business, the revitalization of Meredith Hall and the environmental work of the Darling Institute led by Professor Keith Summerville. Additionally, $54 million was donated to create or expand scholarships. 

“All of these things together will be distinctly and uniquely impactful on our great student experience,” Smith said. 

Candace Carr, a student leader on campus, expressed her gratitude to the individuals who have donated to The Ones campaign at the Francis Marion Drake Society Event. Carr said donors’ gifts and the campaign’s message of how powerful working together can be will help Drake students find the same type of community she has found through organizations like Crew Scholars.

“I’m so grateful to every single person who is investing in myself and the next generation of industry-shaking Bulldogs,” Carr said. “Their generosity is making it possible for every student to find their place on this campus, develop their leadership skills and discover their own unique path after graduation.” 

Kiley Kahler is a 2023 graduate of Drake’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication. As Student Alumni Association president, she kicked off the campaign with a speech at a virtual event in 2021, so speaking at the campaign’s closing was a full-circle moment for her. 

Kahler is now working as the annual fund coordinator at Des Moines nonprofit ChildServe, a dream job that she credits Drake with helping her find. Kahler said she feels the power of the Drake connection even more as an alumni.

“It feels very surreal to have the opportunity to speak in front of so many well established and well connected individuals,” Kahler said.  “I feel very blessed and I feel very grateful and honored for the opportunity to speak to the community that made The Ones possible. I just think it’s going to positively impact so many future generations.”  

Seeing how far The Ones campaign has come fills Kahler with pride. She said that students will see positive changes and more support for a diverse array of programs. 

“This campaign shows the power of generosity. It really shows belief in [Drake’s] great students, staff and faculty,” Kahler said. “I think that there’s something powerful about the connection factor too. [The Ones Campaign] empowers students to have long-term connections to the University’s mission.” 

Another tangible creation that benefits the students is the revitalization of Morehouse Hall, which will result in the creation of the Johansen Student Center. The center will house a multicultural section, meeting spaces, an office for the student body president and more. 

According to Smith, this space was adapted from the original aspirational plan to renovate the Olmsted Center, a plan the University decided wasn’t feasible because they would have needed to fund the project through philanthropic efforts and a loan, which was deemed financially irresponsible given the current economic climate. 

The University then adapted and planned the Johansen Student Center, which will be entirely donor-funded. A substantial part of that is thanks to Greg and Cie Johansen, who made the largest single donor gift in Drake’s history, donating $28 million to the project.

This donation will also support the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, John Dee Bright College, Drake Athletics — specifically women’s basketball — and sustainability efforts like installing solar panels atop Meredith Hall. 

“There’s always broad-based impact and opportunity that comes through a comprehensive campaign, but success at the scale in which Drake and higher ed campaigns experience comes from a small pool of leadership level donors,” Smith said. 

Greg Johansen said that he is now at the stage of his life where he is looking at giving back and how to leave his legacy, so with the timeliness of this campaign, it all came together to be the perfect time for him to make this donation. 

He found a need for the space, noting that groups struggled to find spaces to meet on campus. He also hopes the multicultural center will foster intercultural collaboration. 

“I think [this space] will foster more collaboration hopefully between groups of students, not necessarily all the students in a certain group, but bringing groups together again,” Johansen said. “It’s going to be a space where there are no classrooms, so it’s truly a place for students.”

Speaking on The Ones campaign as a whole, he said it’s “pretty impressive” that the trustees contributed to the campaign, as this displays that the people involved in the institution’s governance “can put their money where their mouth is.” 

Jeff Russell, Drake’s newest member of the Board of Trustees, said the campaign will launch Drake University into the future, and donating to the campaign was about paying it forward. It was important for him and his wife to donate to honor their mentor, journalism professor Bob Woodward. They were able to sponsor one of the offices in Meredith Hall in his name. 

Russell said that improving the buildings is not just about the brick and mortar, but what can happen in those spaces once they are renovated. 

 “It’s about the relationships that get created in most spaces,” Russell said. “Move a few years away from graduation and what you remember is less about the class on Tuesday morning and more about the relationships you created with fellow students and professors.” 

The Ones campaign is working towards its goal of strengthening the heartland by funding the Jay N. Darling Institute. This institute helps rural communities. For example, they revitalized degraded pastures in northern Missouri and southern Iowa and have helped create new economic development in Perry, Iowa after a school shooting in January 2024 and the loss of a major job supplier with the closing of the Tyson plant that same month. 

 The institute has provided 14 DarlingCorps scholarships to date. Keith Summerville is a professor of environmental science and the executive director of the Jay N. Darling Institute. He said that the institute seeks to award entirely donor-funded scholarships to students sourced from rural high schools across the country, and in return for receiving a scholarship, those students agree to embed themselves within the rural community for a period of no less than three months. 

“There is nothing more humbling in my professional experience than having the phone ring and having a community [member], say ‘Keith, we need Drake students,’” Summerville said. “There’s nothing that is equally more humbling than seeing a student move into a rural community and together with a partner work to deliver value to that community that couldn’t possibly be realized just months before. The energy of our students is truly impressive. That energy combined with the generous gifts of The Ones campaign has positioned this university to be able to thrive and to serve as a global thought leader that tackles the pressing challenges that we know our society faces and that we must overcome if we are to experience a sustainable and just future.” 

Additional ways The Ones campaign has helped the community is through the opening of the Gregory and Suzie Glazer Burt Boys & Girls Club and the building of the Mediacom Stadium. 

“I fundamentally believe that every institution in this country, and particularly institutions of higher education, have the opportunity to make a real difference in the lives of others, and with that opportunity comes responsibility to do so,” Martin said. “At Drake University, we frequently do not look down. We look up and we ask ourselves, “How can we make the world a better place? Consistent with our mission, resources and competency, how do we make the world a better place?’ And that’s what this campaign was doing.”