As part of their centenary celebrations, Makerere University through its University Endowment Fund, has commissioned a digital system in order to enable all the alumni to donate to different causes in the development of the university.
Name Makerere Advance system, the system was launched by the university Vice Chancellor, Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe on Tuesday, 2nd August 2022 at the Frank Kalimuzo Central Teaching Facility, in the Council Room at the University Main Campus with a cash donation of shs500,000.
The #MakAdvance system is an initiative designed to build a digital and interactive alumni database where all the alumni and friends of Makerere can create accounts and update their bio-data, digitally donate funds towards different causes in the university, provide real-time updates on events running in the university and improve service delivery regarding donations, news, alumni and stakeholder management through a streamlined, integrated, efficient and effective platform.
Speaking at the launch, Prof. Nawangwe said that most of the very rich universities in the world have huge endowments that support most of their works without largely depending on the government funding
“The Harvard University about five years ago was getting $1.7 billion just profits of their endowment. So, they don’t even touch the original endowment. They just use the profits and most of that goes into research and related activities like scholarships and some of the people from Africa have benefited from that.”
“I attended the inauguration all day of the president of Yale University and one alumnus donated $50 million for a new hospital. So those universities very largely depend on their endowments but we can also do it,” he added.
According to him, there are about 390,000 alumni on the university database who could raise $390,000 if they just donated $1 “and that’s not little money.”
“If they decided to be more generous and $10 every year, it is $3.9 million and if they were even more generous and gave $100 and I know most of them can afford, it’ll be $39 million. Now $30 million is almost the entire research budget for Makerere University.”
The Vice Chancellor says that they intend to invest the donations to fund university legacy projects including the student centre.
“…we are the only major university without a student center where students can go and have some snacks, have meals, maybe surf the internet, go to the cinemas, pay the bank if they have to pay, and host many other things that enable students to have a holistic experience of the university.”
The other legacy project the university is looking at is the University Hospital. The Vice-Chancellor again says Makerere is the only major university without such a facility.
“The University of Michigan has what they call the Michigan Hospital System. So, the University of Michigan alone has about 10 hospitals in different parts of the state and its hospitals bring the bulk of the income of the University of Michigan.”
Prof. Nawangwe revealed that 52% of the university population are female students but the Halls of Residence have a proportion of females of only 13%.
“So we want to build more hostels for our students to protect them.”
He also noted that much as the university is becoming research-led, they don’t have hostels for post-graduate students since the halls of residence are dilapidated because they were built a long time ago.
He gave an example of floods that have killed people in Mbale, saying that if enough research was done in advance, such a horrible thing wouldn’t have happened.
Dr. Maggie Kigozi, the chairperson of Makerere University Endowment Fund said that the software package will enable alumni in particular but also stakeholders to be able to communicate with their school to be able to find ideas and projects that they like to promote the University.
“We are looking at supporting specific projects, your halls of residence, maybe you want to support students. That is a legacy project that we must put in place.”
Ugandan enterprises urged to explore regional oil and gas opportunities“So that’s why the endowment fund is in place to raise funds. We think we already have like 400,000 alumni on the Makerere Advance system we will be talking to them if they wish to contribute,” she added.
“You can use mobile money, you can use your card at any moment and we’re going to look for other ways of collecting funds. MakAdvance has been launched by the vice chancellor so, look at it, check it out. See whether you want to donate as little as $1, is very welcome!”
The #MakAdvance system is built around seven pillars namely;
Alumni and Stakeholder Management
The section manages information including Alumni registration, chapter enrollment, societies subscriptions, and alumni directory listing. So far, information for over 300,000 alumni is in the system.
Payment Management
This section allows for convenient payment options for alumni and stakeholders as they donate towards different causes in the university
Donor Ranking
The Donor ranking section enables us to create a database of donors in recognition and rank donations made to the different causes using the available channels i.e. mobile money, PayPal, and cards.
Cause Management
This section primarily manages the different causes in the university. This includes time- bound causes and non-time bound causes such as scholarships, events etc.
Events and Webinar Management
The system also tracks and profiles all events and webinars happening across the University from both Internal and external stakeholders.
Dashboard, social media management
Enables administration of information in the system and report generation
Souvenir and Gifts Shop
This is an online shop for all Makerere University Souvenir items for sale.
