How the LSU Foundation has helped fund the university’s future for 65 years—and counting
For 65 years, the LSU Foundation has served as the primary fundraising entity for academics at the university. Founded in 1960, at a time when public universities were still heavily reliant on state funding, the LSU Foundation was created not only to fundraise for LSU but also to act as a focal point for donors who wished to contribute to the university’s fledgling endowment.
Although LSU was late among SEC schools in creating a foundation, it has since evolved into a 90-person organization with about 60 staff members directly supporting fundraising efforts.
Led by Robert Stuart Jr. as president and CEO since 2020, the heart of the LSU Foundation’s mission revolves around students.
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“Our goal is to provide people with real opportunities,” Stuart says. “We want to provide pathways for our students to get internships and get jobs.”
Over the last three decades, the LSU Foundation has helped spearhead three major fundraising efforts to fund scholarships, research and campus infrastructure improvements. The LSU Campaign launched in 1997 and raised $255 million, exceeding the original $150 million goal. Less than a decade later, the Forever LSU campaign kicked off in the summer of 2006 and raised $764 million in less than five years.
The most recent, and ambitious, Fierce for the Future campaign achieved unprecedented results. The historic endeavor brought all eight LSU campuses together in 2019 to raise over $1.5 billion by the summer of 2022—three years earlier than anticipated.
Despite its Louisiana roots, the LSU Foundation operates more like a national fundraising institution. And although the foundation raises more money in Louisiana than elsewhere, less than half of the donations come from within the state.
“Texas is our next biggest market, but we’re raising money in California, Florida, New York, Georgia, you name it,” Stuart says.
The Foundation’s outreach strategy is rooted in relationships—with alumni, corporate partners, and what it calls “Friends of LSU,” or people who have a connection to but did not graduate from the university.
The developments along South Stadium Drive, from Highland Road to Nicholson Drive, are the most obvious impact of their dollars. The “building boom,” as the foundation calls it, is the result of its tireless fundraising to revitalize that academic corridor.
“Facilities communicate things to communities,” Krista Raney, executive vice president of development for the LSU Foundation, explains. “If you are interested in pursuing a degree in engineering, and you come and tour Patrick F. Taylor Hall, it’s obvious to you that LSU takes engineering really seriously.”
The Business Education Complex, Patrick F. Taylor Hall, and the under-construction Our Lady of the Lake Health Interdisciplinary Science Building have transformed South Stadium Drive from what was the outer edge of campus to a critical educational core of the university.
With fundraising underway for a new library and the Construction and Advanced Manufacturing Building, both located in the same developing southern area of campus, the road to Tiger Stadium will look drastically different within the next five to 10 years.
Raney, who will succeed Stuart as president and CEO of the LSU Foundation next summer, has a vision of LSU where “it all matters,” both athletically and academically.
“We have the Taj Mahal of stadiums in Tiger Stadium,” Raney says. “We have world-class academic structures that sit right alongside the world-class athletics. That is what it is about, that rising tide. Everybody comes up. Athletics come up, and academics come up.”
Breaking ground
A look at some of the LSU Foundation’s projects underway along South Stadium Drive
The Our Lady of the Lake Health Interdisciplinary Science Building
- Estimated cost: $148 million
- Status: Under construction
- The details: A 200,000-square-foot, four-story building for science-focused academics, research and industry collaboration that’s expected to be completed in late 2025
Construction and Advanced Manufacturing Building
- Estimated cost: $107 million
- Status: Raising funds
- The details: A 148,000-square-foot complex with enhanced lab space that will serve as a hub for LSU’s construction management program
This article was originally published in the August 2025 issue of 225 magazine.
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