Dear ACAD Community,
I am extremely pleased to announce a historic gift to ACAD.
Long-time President’s Circle member and ACAD supporter Jill Rawlinson has made a donation to ACAD in the amount of $1 million dollars.
These funds will establish The Jill Rawlinson Fund, which will be a depreciating fund (rather than an endowment) dedicated to special endeavours at ACAD. The general terms for this fund are included below this note.
With this gift, ACAD attains a new level of support within our external community and among our supporters; it is through the visionary philanthropic leadership of people such as Ms. Rawlinson that we will begin to see increased partnerships for the college, and support for our work. This gift is also a testament to the increasing recognition of the college as a force for culture, art, and design, and underscores the important history of the college as well as the important work that we have begun and will continue to undertake. During this next year we will be using our planning process, as well as creating new avenues for discussion, to begin to focus our energies on what sort of projects and initiatives would be subject to the terms of this fund.
Our college mission speaks to our “creating possibilities”...please join me in celebrating this important gift, which will enable us to better fulfil that statement of collective purpose. I will be writing our internal community more about this opportunity very soon.
Best regards,
Lance Carlson
President + CEO
Alberta College of Art + Design
Purpose of the Jill Rawlinson Fund
The Jill Rawlinson Fund is dedicated to the support of important original ACAD projects and initiatives that advance the capability of the faculty, staff, and students of ACAD, as well as the institution itself, to reach greater levels of capability, influence, and distinction in the world. Innovative ACAD projects and initiatives that significantly and strategically contribute to the ability of the institution to assert its standing in the world of artist and designer education as well as emergent cultural fields, the capacity of the staff, faculty, and students to understand and express (as well as contribute to) their own place and role within an increasingly complex global environment, and undertakings that generally advance the institution within such an environment. It is assumed that any initiatives funded via this gift will carry significant transformative value for the institution.
Awards and Expenditure Plan
There is no predetermined amount of individual expenditure levels from this fund.
Criteria for Awards
Example projects may include but are not be limited to the following areas:
- Strategic and new approaches to education within ACAD that result in major educational innovations.
- Special initiatives that link the faculty, staff, and students of ACAD to the larger world of academic work, cultural knowledge, or art and design education that are deemed to carry transformational power for ACAD.
- Original projects or initiatives that advance ACAD as a catalyst with regard to the external environment (especially on an international scale), particularly in the areas of culture, art and design, community, business, government, or the non-profit sector.
- Investments in major facility or technology/equipment initiatives that carry the potential to dramatically serve the general purposes of this fund.
Priority is given to funding opportunities that clearly have the capacity to exert a transformative effect on ACAD and its capacity to fulfil its mission, mandate, and vision as well as college goals.
