The University of St. Thomas is making affordability and student opportunity central to its largest fundraising effort, anchored by an $82 million gift from attorney Michael Ciresi's family foundations. The gift officially launches the St. Paul school's $1 billion campaign and surpasses the university's previous record of $75 million, given by Lee and Penny Anderson in 2023.
A Record Gift Years in the Making
The campaign, called “Be Brilliant. Be Bold.,” went public after St. Thomas had raised nearly $800 million, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune. The $82 million pledge is scheduled to be paid over a decade. The Star Tribune reports that the effort is the sixth-largest fundraising campaign among U.S. Catholic colleges and the largest ever mounted by a Minnesota private college or university. University president Rob Vischer said St. Thomas hopes to exceed its $1 billion target.
Michael Ciresi, an attorney who co-founded the Ciresi Walburn Foundation, told the Star Tribune that the foundations selected St. Thomas to carry out their mission in perpetuity. Ciresi built his national profile representing Minnesota in its landmark 1998 tobacco lawsuit, which resulted in a $7 billion settlement, according to Lawdragon. He later co-founded the law firm Ciresi Conlin LLP and established charitable foundations focused on educational equity. Before this gift, the Ciresi Walburn Foundation for Children — originally formed as the Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi Foundation for Children — had awarded more than $23 million in grants aimed at improving educational equity for Minnesota youth, per the Academy of Legal Studies in Business.
Where the Money Is Headed
The Star Tribune reports the donation will fund the Ciresi Walburn Leadership Fellows Program in perpetuity, an initiative that selects 13 Minnesota students annually for $17,500 scholarships toward tuition, mentorship, and other services. Roberta Walburn, an attorney and co-founder of the foundation, told the paper the foundations want many fellowship students to stay in Minnesota and help build the state. The gift will also create a new center for leadership and a new center for first-generation students at St. Thomas, though designs for both remain underway, the outlet notes.
The fellows program combines financial need with a demonstrated commitment to leadership and social justice, according to the Star Tribune. More than $350 million of the broader campaign is earmarked for student scholarships and affordability, according to GlobeNewswire. Vischer said college students face increasing financial need, and building scholarship support requires substantial fundraising, the Star Tribune reported. Between 2017 and 2024, St. Thomas had already doubled its scholarship endowment by raising $220 million specifically for financial aid, according to the University of St. Thomas Newsroom.
Beyond Dollars: A Push for Volunteers and Advocates
The campaign is not only about money. Per GlobeNewswire, “Be Brilliant. Be Bold.” also includes a public engagement goal seeking to inspire more than one million acts of volunteering, student mentorship, and university advocacy, encouraging non-monetary participation that could bolster career network opportunities for students. The Star Tribune reports the campaign also aims to promote learning experiences such as internships, invest in faculty, and deepen St. Thomas' Catholic identity and academic reputation.
A University Scaling Up on Every Front
St. Thomas is Minnesota's largest private university, enrolling more than 9,400 undergraduate and graduate students across its St. Paul and Minneapolis campuses, according to Forbes. The school held an endowment valued at roughly $788.4 million for fiscal year 2025, which the new $1 billion campaign aims to significantly grow, per Wikipedia.
How St. Thomas' Campaign Compares
The available Minnesota comparison is a larger public-university campaign. According to the University of Minnesota, its separate Driven campaign began fundraising work in July 2011 and sought to raise $4 billion by June 2021, including $1 billion for students. That makes it a larger public-university effort than St. Thomas' $1 billion campaign, though the two campaigns involve different institutions and fundraising structures.
The fundraising push follows the university's rapid athletic ascent. St. Thomas began competing in NCAA Division I athletics in 2021, according to the Star Tribune, becoming the first modern NCAA program to move all of its varsity sports directly from Division III to Division I, as reported by Tommie Sports. That move came after the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference voted in 2019 to involuntarily remove St. Thomas due to its athletic dominance.
Following the Anderson Arena and Campus Expansion
The Andersons' previous record $75 million gift funded construction of the $175 million Lee and Penny Anderson Arena, a 5,300-seat facility on the St. Paul campus that opened in October 2025 and now hosts Tommie basketball and hockey, per IMEG. The new Ciresi gift arrives as St. Thomas pursues physical growth to match its athletic and academic ambitions. Earlier this year, the university moved to expand its St. Paul footprint by reopening a 2004 municipal permit to add housing, parking, and classroom space south of Summit Avenue, aiming to accommodate increased campus usage following the Division I transition.
