The College of Management at the Georgia Institute of Technology today announced an anonymous commitment of $25 million, $20 million of which is a 1-to-1 challenge grant designed to inspire charitable gifts and commitments from other donors to the College's endowment. The remaining $5 million will provide funds expendable at the discretion of the College of Management's dean, Steve Salbu.

The goal of the challenge grant is to provide a financial foundation that will allow the College to more than double its current endowment within five years. This growth in endowment will provide dramatically increased private support for the College's core funding priorities, including endowed faculty chairs and professorships, undergraduate student scholarships, and graduate student fellowships.

"We are in direct competition with the nation's best business schools," says Salbu. "In order to compete effectively, we must have the resources to attract and retain the finest faculty at all career stages because world-class faculty members are what drive the College's national and international reputation. The same holds true with our students. It is imperative that we endow substantial numbers of undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships. Our goal is to lead the top business schools in attracting and supporting the very best student talent."

The College of Management's reputation has grown tremendously in recent years, as evidenced by increasingly higher positions in annual rankings of America's best business schools. U.S. News & World Report ranks the College's MBA program at No. 22 nationally (No. 7 among public universities), while the undergraduate program ranks at No. 31. BusinessWeek ranks the MBA program No. 3 in its "Most Improved MBA Program" category and ranks the entire College at No. 7 in the "Most Innovative Management Curriculum" category.

To participate in the challenge, donors must make a qualifying gift or multi-year commitment to be fulfilled within five years. Those gifts and pledge payments will be matched dollar-for-dollar by the anonymous donor. Fundraising for the challenge is expected to conclude no later than June 30, 2012, though pledge payments may extend up to five years from the date of a participating donor's commitment.

"With this gift, we have an opportunity to move Georgia Tech's College of Management to the very top tier of the world's preeminent business schools of management and technology," says Georgia Tech President G. P. "Bud" Peterson.