The
VMI
Foundation

At VMI, education means more than first-rate academics. Every day is considered as an opportunity to instill in cadets the qualities long associated with VMI: strong character, keen intellect, commitment to service, and unshakable honor. Every day is taken as an opportunity to inculcate in cadets a life-long dedication to learning about their chosen professions, their world, themselves. This approach to education has endured and attracted young people for one simple reason: It works.

Strengthening and sustaining "The VMI Way" is expensive. Thus, the VMI Foundation strives to ensure that the Institute has the financial resources it needs to educate the cadets of today and tomorrow in the same distinctive manner it has since November 1839.

The VMI Foundation was established during the hard times of the mid-1930s. The effects of the Great Depression had reduced the size of the Corps of Cadets by 20% in three years and state support had been drastically cut. The prospects for widespread economic recovery and a consequent restoration of state funding to pre-Depression levels looked bleak. It soon became apparent to a group of far-sighted and devoted alumni that, if VMI were to thrive in the future, state support must be supplemented.

It was determined that the best way to meet VMI’s future needs would be the establishment of a permanent organization devoted to the advancement of VMI. Thus, on October 30, 1936, the VMI Foundation was established. In 1939, the VMI Foundation launched its first major fund-raising campaign with the then-ambitious goal of $1,000,000 for improvements to the academic program, increased funding for the library, and benefits to the faculty.

Today, almost every aspect of the Institute’s extraordinary educational system benefits from the VMI Foundation’s support. It is safe to say that every cadet, instructor, and staff member somehow benefits—either directly or indirectly—from the work of the Foundation and the generosity of its donors.

Although it has taken on new responsibilities and embraced new techniques and technologies, the VMI Foundation has never lost sight of what always has been its two-fold mission: to advance the Virginia Military Institute and the VMI Alumni Association and further the standards of excellence all three institutions share. Since 1936, the VMI Foundation has been fortunate in that its leaders and its donors have been alumni, parents, and friends who appreciate just how critical constant and generous private support is to maintaining the Institute’s exacting program and who understand the need for sustained action to garner such support.

Today’s world is one of exciting technological, social, economic, and political changes, the speed of which would dazzle the likes of Francis H. Smith, Claudius Crozet, and J.T.L. Preston. Yet, the values upon which VMI was established—duty, integrity, and perseverance—remain inviolate and invaluable. In order to continue to prepare young men and women to provide the sound, principled leadership for which VMI alumni are justly renowned, VMI must develop bold, innovative academic programs as it retains that which sets VMI apart from other institutions and makes a VMI education so precious.

The VMI Foundation will play a critical role in ensuring that the Institute accomplishes this mission, remains a first-rate academic institution, and sustains its unique place in American higher education. It will develop the financial support necessary for VMI to keep pace with its continuing needs and to be prepared for the challenges of the future. In doing so, the VMI Foundation combines vigorous fundraising and careful stewardship and engages the enduring spirit and substantial energy of VMI’s alumni, parents, and friends.