Morehouse College has raised $322 million of its $500 million campaign

Morehouse College will celebrate its 158th birthday on Valentine’s Day with plans for a new campus heart.

On Friday afternoon, Morehouse College will announce its $500 million “Campus of the Future” and the “Making Men of Consequence” campaign to redevelop the nation’s only historically Black liberal arts institution dedicated to educating and empowering men of color.

College leaders will also break ground on Friday in a new residence hall as part of the kickoff of its Founder’s Week activities. The “Campus of the Future” campaign will also include a new campus center with greenspace — and it will help connect Morehouse College’s Main Campus with its Century Campus. The new campus buildings are being designed by Columbus, Ohio-based Moody Nolan, the largest African American-owned design firm in the country.

“We are creating a new heart for Morehouse,” President David Thomas said in an exclusive telephone interview Thursday afternoon. “There definitely will be a greater connection between the Century Campus and the Main Campus. It won’t feel as much like there are two different campuses as it does today.”

Morehouse College already has raised $322 million of the $500 million goal, an unprecedented amount for the iconic Atlanta-based HBCU. Thomas said once the campaign is completed, Morehouse will have raised more money during this cycle than the total of all that’s been raised during the College’s storied history.

Part of the total includes a $20 million gift from the Atlanta-based Robert W. Woodruff Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic entities in the Southeast.

Morehouse has also received a $5 million gift from the retired CEO of Walgreens, L. Daniel Jorndt, to fund a scholarship for financially struggling students majoring in Business and Technology.

The scholarship will be named in honor of the memory of Jorndt’s first boss pharmacist Marion E. Williams, who was the beloved owner of a popular neighborhood drugstore named Williams Pharmacy in Des Moines, Iowa. Williams died on July 6, 2018.

Jorndt, the first Walgreens CEO who was not a member of the founding Walgreen family, served in that role from 1997 to 2003.

“It was Williams’ life of service that inspired me and my wife, Patricia, to give this gift to Morehouse College,” Jorndt said in a release. “Morehouse is an institution that is mission-driven to develop service-minded leaders.”

Those two gifts are indicators of the success Morehouse has enjoyed during Thomas’s tenure as president. Thomas, who will step down at the end of June, began working with Morehouse in November 2017 and officially became president in January 2018. By the time he steps down, he will have served Morehouse for nearly eight years.

“I’m the longest-serving Morehouse president since Walter Massey,” Thomas said of Massey, who was president from 1995 to 2007. “Today, the average for a college president is four years.”

Thomas, 68, is proud that he’s been able to provide stability and growth during his time at Morehouse.

“I feel good given where the college is today compared to when I arrived,” said Thomas, whose tenure included managing through the Covid pandemic and the protests over the killing of George Floyd. “I don’t think anybody doubts I was the right choice for Morehouse during this time in its history.”

The College has been able to more than double the number of its funded scholarships since 2017 when it had a debt of about $60 million and was using its line of credit to pay for operations. Today, there is no debt, and Thomas said Morehouse hasn’t had to use its line of credit in four years.

“Our reserves were close to zero when I got here,” Thomas said. “Today, our reserves are close to $40 million.”

The endowment also has grown to $270 million compared to $127 million seven years ago. And its number of students has gone from 1,900 to more than 2,200.

The centerpiece of the campaign will be a new Campus Center — a 58,000-square-foot facility with a new dining hall, a rooftop plaza, an innovation hub and a space where students, faculty and alumni can gather.

The project will also include converting a surface parking lot into much-needed greenspace on the Main Campus.

Two residence halls will be torn down as part of the Campus of the Future campaign, but Morehouse will add new dorms and residence halls with 340 beds. That will result in a net increase of 150 beds, Thomas said.

“We already have shovels in the ground for the residence halls, and we expect those to be available for occupancy in January 2027,” Thomas said. “We expect the campus center to open around January 2028 along with the plaza and greenspace.”

Thomas said the Woodruff gift is particularly significant for Morehouse. The well-respected Woodruff Foundation often serves as a “Good Housekeeping” seal of approval in the community.

“We actually are hoping the Woodruff gift will motivate other local foundations to make gifts to Morehouse to support the work we are doing,” said Thomas, who added Morehouse has several grant applications in the works. 

“I think we will raise the remaining $178 million within a year, if not before. That’s my primary focus,” Thomas said. “I’m sure the next president of Morehouse will have to take responsibility for finishing the campaign.”

Thomas said he did not have information on the status of the search for a new Morehouse president.

Meanwhile, Thomas and his wife, Willetta Lewis, plan to split their time between Atlanta and Rhode Island, where their grandchild (soon grandchildren) live. They have bought a house in east Atlanta, and they plan to spend winter and spring in Atlanta.

“I’m going to be teaching at Morehouse in the winter,” Thomas said. “It will be a class about leadership.”