As a UVA graduate, are you a member of the VAF? Or do you give to NIL? Or to you give to the school in any capacity at all?
Ford M.
The answer: emphatic no.
But I think I see where the question from my new fellow UVA alum friend is going.
I’ve positioned myself as a very public supporter and even more public critic of the UVA Athletics program and the University across the board over the years, so, shouldn’t I maybe have some skin in the game?
Fair point.
My response: they don’t need my money.
Here’s why.
Starting with the Virginia Athletics Foundation, VAF reported $45.9 million in receipts against $40.3 million in expenses in tax-year 2021.
It had total assets of $166 million at the end of 2021.
UVA Athletics led the ACC in total revenue in 2022-2023, at $161.9 million.
What I can do to be a part of that: a drop in the bucket.
Switching over to the University as a whole, UVA has an endowment of $13.6 billion – billion, with a b- – and the annual operating budget is $5.4 billion, with $2.3 billion of that spent in the academic division, and $3 billion in the medical center.
Those are all ungodly sums, far beyond anything I can comprehend in terms of scale – and I say that as someone who is fortunately, after 20 years of building a small business, actually doing pretty well financially.
But the thousands – with a t- – that my wife and I give to charitable causes every year wouldn’t be anywhere near a penny on the dollar toward the bottom line at UVA.
So, our thinking on what we do with our dollars is, we want to have impact.
My wife lost her identical twin sister to suicide at 15; she has made suicide prevention her mission in life.
We give money there, more generally toward mental-health advocacy, and we also put money toward LGBTQ+ rights and advocacy.
All of those are important to us.
And all of that money is spent locally, where we think we can have the most impact.
Giving money to a football ops center, nah, doesn’t move the needle for me.
Winning football games vs. helping save lives: it’s not even close.
And before you @ me about how giving to the VAF helps pay for the kids who play go to school, if that’s why folks are giving, not to try to get wins, but to help the kids get an education, I’m all for that.
Me personally, though, as a former first-generation college student from a horribly economically-disadvantaged background, I could see being a part of an effort aimed at getting more kids like me access to a UVA education.
On the one hand, helping the next kid growing up in a trailer park in a broken home change their life.
On the other, helping a football program get back to .500.
It’s all about bang for the buck for me.
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Chris Graham
