UND Alumni Association & Foundation

UND Alumni Association & Foundation

Founded in 1889 to serve the University of North Dakota's first eight graduates, the UND Alumni Association & Foundation merged alumni engagement with official fundraising duties long before it was standard practice. CEO DeAnna Carlson Zink, the first woman to lead the merged entity, guides an operation that now supports over 120,000 alumni. The foundation achieved a record $119.9 million in donations during 2025 alone, outpacing the original $500 million Forever UND campaign target well ahead of schedule. The investment strategy cuts across asset classes including direct real estate, mineral rights and royalties, commodity hedges, limited partnerships, and secondaries. Physical assets held on and around campus range from the Gorecki Alumni Center and Memorial Village mixed-use development to the Nodak Insurance Company Sports Performance Center. The portfolio also holds positions in natural resources and an aerospace training fleet tied to the university's aviation program. Confirmed partners include Sanford Health, which donated $6.5 million toward athletic performance and healthcare facility endowments, and Edgewood Healthcare, led by board member Phil Gisi. Board leadership brings unusual operational heft for a regional university foundation. Investment Committee Chair Randy Gershman is a financial advisor at Edward Jones; Finance Committee Chair Chad Wachter leads Investcore, Inc.; Vice Chair Troy Bader is the President and CEO of International Dairy Queen Corp. Board member David St Peter runs the Minnesota Twins, while Mike LeBeau serves as President of Sanford Health. The organization surpassed its initial $500 million campaign goal early and reset the target at $625 million by end of 2026, buoyed by gifts like the Tareen family's $5 million commitment to launch a dermatology program. The foundation's structure creates a distinctive sourcing advantage: it functions simultaneously as a fundraising engine, a real-asset owner, and a limited partner. Property holdings include commercial buildings at 2750 Gateway Drive, the Pi Phi Property, the Gershman Graduate Center, and a significant mineral rights and royalties portfolio. This triple mandate allows the foundation to use physical campus assets to generate returns while deploying donor capital into scholarships, new endowments, and university facilities — a perpetuity alignment most standalone foundations cannot replicate.