150 Years of Generosity

December 2025

Brigham Young University might not exist if it weren’t for the generous, inspired people who have believed in its potential and donated to it since 1875. Pivotal moments of altruism over the past 150 years have helped the university move closer to becoming the BYU of prophecy.

The Will to Thrive

The Lewis Building that housed Brigham Young Academy inexplicably burned to the ground in January 1884. While many saw this tragedy as the end of the academy, Principal Karl G. Maeser’s response was brief and prescient: “It’s only the building.” However, because the building was not insured, its loss left the academy homeless and on the verge of bankruptcy.

In this time of crisis, some of BYU’s earliest benefactors stepped forward. George M. Brown, a member of the Utah Stake high council, founded the Beneficiary Fund for BYA in 1886. Within the next week, a group of 100 leading Provo businessmen responded and pledged $1,117.50.

Abraham O. Smoot, then the president of the Utah Stake and a former mayor of both Salt Lake City and Provo, also responded, providing classroom space for the academy in buildings he owned and in his own home. He eventually mortgaged all his property, saying, “I have had to do it to raise money to keep the Brigham Young Academy going. . . . I love that school and I can see what it means to our youth to have a spiritual as well as book learning. It must live.”

Acting on the Vision

One of BYU’s greatest Carly patrons is Jesse Knight. He felt that the Lord had a fortune waiting for him in the mountains of central Utah. In 1896, a vein of lead-silver was found in a mine he owned, and Jesse became wealthy almost overnight—but he understood his responsibility as steward of this fortune. “The earth is the Lord’s bank,” Jesse is quoted as saying, “and no man has a right to take money out of that bank and use it extravagantly upon himself.” In 1898, Jesse and his wife, Amanda, made their first of many donations to Brigham Young Academy. 

The Knights are known not only for contributing their own funds, however, but for rallying 
others to donate as well. When BYA needed the Training School Building and a new gymnasium, Jesse pledged $15,000 and recruited Salt Lake City businessman David Evans, who was not a member of the Church, to pitch in $5,000 more. 

And then came famous moment in 1913 when, due to financial burdens, BYU was poised to sell much of the land on Temple Hill, where campus is today. At a graduation event that year, student Alfred Kelly shared the vision he had seen of a campus filled with students on Temple Hill.

Jesse responded by making a considerable donation and encouraging others in attendance to do the same. 

Now, the Knights’ legacy lives on in the Jesse and Amanda Knight Society, comprising donors who include BYU in their estate plans. “Every generation needs people like Alfred Kelly who receive and share their inspiring vision,” said BYU President Cecil O. Samuelson to the society in 2004, “but every generation also needs people like Jesse and Amanda Knight who demonstrate faith and act on the vision to make it a reality.” 

Founding Student Aid

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, BYU and other universities began offering expanded student loans, scholarships, and grants. An early example at BYU was in 1954, when the Hinckley family established endowed scholarships honoring former BYU Professor Edwin S. Hinckley (uncle to Church President Gordon B. Hinckley) and Edwin’s daughter-in-law Abrelia Seely Hinckley. Since 2014, an average of more than 70 Hinckley scholarships have been awarded to BYU students each year.

“The effects of the scholarship program for good throughout the world are simply incalculable,” said Kim S. Cameron in an interview with Y Magazine in 2004. Cameron, a Hinckley scholarship recipient and Fulbright Scholar, is an emeritus professor at the University of Michigan.

In 1967, BYU started a scholarship named for the current president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—originally it was the David O. McKay Scholarship and today it is the Dallin H. Oaks Scholarship, which awards 150 percent of the Latter-day Saint tuition cost for eight semesters to 50 first-year students.

The first permanent fundraising organization for charitable causes of the Church was launched in 1955 and called the BYU Destiny Fund, now expanded and reorganized as the Philanthropies Department of the Church. Philanthropies teaches, engages with, coordinates for, invites, and reports to Church members and friends about the purposes and joys of giving. Philanthropies coordinates all fundraising at BYU.

A Carillon Call

On October 10, 1975, President Spencer W. Kimball dedicated the Centennial Carillon Tower, which had been donated by students, faculty, and alumni to commemorate BYU’s centennial. As part of the dedication, he gave the address “The Second Century of Brigham Young University,” which has served as a road map for the university ever since.

In that speech, President Kimball said about donors who support BYU: “Members of the Church are willing to doubly tax themselves to support the Church Educational System, including this university. . . . We must do special things that would justify the special financial outpouring that supports this university.”

Lighting the Way

In 1993, BYU and BYU–Hawaii embarked on an ambitious capital campaign to raise $250 million.

Speaking at the campaign’s public opening in 1996, Church President Gordon B. Hinckley said: “You never can foretell the consequences of a dollar invested in education. It goes on multiplying itself. It becomes not an expenditure but an investment that pays returns far and wide and through generations to come.”

When the campaign ended on December 31, 1999, more than $400 million had been raised with more than 147,500 alumni and friends making donations. Indeed, the campaign set a new bar for fundraising, enhanced campus, and elevated the student experience.

Upgrading Student Aid 

A BYU education goes beyond the experiential learning methods found at most universities. The term inspiring learning is a shorthand way to convey how a BYU education is unique, as outlined in BYU’s mission statement.

To provide more students with inspiring learning experiences, BYU President Kevin J Worthen launched the Inspiring Learning Initiative in 2016 with a goal to raise $120 million in endowed funds to provide deep learning experiences to approximately 3,000 students each year.

The initiative was an immediate success for students, and so was the fundraising effort: When the initial funding period was complete, more than $150 million had been endowed, and since 2016 more than 85,000 students have benefited from donor-funded inspiring learning experiences.

Strengthening the student experience is also a focus for President C. Shane Reese. He said, “As long as we are true to our mission and aims, we will promote inspiring learning.”