WHERE YOUR GIFT IS NEEDED
Institute for Social Research
CAMPAIGN GOALS
Cash/pledge goal: $25 million
Bequest intentions: $2 million
Highlights:
• Student and faculty support: The Next Generation Initiative
• Encouraging innovative research
• Disseminating our knowledge
• Support ongoing research on: Assessing Life Courses, Cultures and Health; Understanding Technological and Social Change; and Generating Honest Numbers for Democracies
• Infrastructure: experimental labs, distance learning sites |
University of Michigan Institute for Social Research
426 Thompson Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248
phone: 734-764-8369
fax: 734-764-2377
Patrick E. Shields, ISR Director of External Relations
peshield@umich.edu
The University of Michigan Institute for Social Research (ISR) is one of the largest and oldest academic survey and social research organizations in the world. The ISR is dedicated to social science in the public interest. For more than 50 years, the ISR has advanced public understanding of human behavior through empirical research of extraordinary depth and breadth. Representing the disciplines of psychology, political science, economics, anthropology and public health, ISR research scientists have directed some of the longest-running and most widely cited and utilized studies in the nation.
Opportunities for Personal Giving
Since its founding in 1948, ISR has evolved into one of the world's leading centers of social science in the public interest. We have amassed an almost unrivalled record of achievement as a fair broker of research-based ideas; a source of accurate information for policy-making; a training ground for statistical scientists in emerging democracies; an innovator in social science methodologies; and an educational resource for academia, government, and the private sector.
Grant-based funding sources have fostered dramatic growth in the scope of research. They have also limited the Institute's development in several important ways. Grant dollars must be directed exclusively to specific research projects. This has left ISR with limited revenue for scholarships, fellowships, and graduate student research assistantships, few dollars for outreach, and--perhaps most importantly--no venture capital for innovative, risky and potentially high-payoff projects.
Achieving meaningful progress in helping society meet emerging needs will demand that ISR welcome new challenges, pursue new goals, advance in new directions…and attract new, more flexible forms of financial support. Ideally, this support will take the form of an endowment, providing the Institute with a continuous flow of revenue for path-breaking research, training the next generation of empirical social scientists, seeding new landmark studies and program initiatives, and disseminating knowledge and social science know-how through public and policy outreach.
As the world's premier academic survey and research center, ISR is poised to make significant contributions to national and international policy in the coming decades.
The scope and impact of those future achievements will depend directly on the willingness of individuals, foundations, and corporations to become partners in the future by making generous commitments to this important work.
All gifts to ISR are sincerely appreciated. Our promise to you is a simple one: we will be responsible stewards of your investment in social science in the public interest, and we will strive to remain deserving of your loyalty, friendship, and generosity.
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