UNC-Chapel Hill chief fundraiser David Routh is stepping down from university giving
UNC-Chapel Hill’s vice chancellor for university development, who led the university through its historic $4.25 billion fundraising campaign, is stepping down.
David Routh has overseen UNC’s development office and fundraising efforts for nearly a decade and will officially resign in December, the university announced Monday.
University leaders recently boosted Routh’s pay by $225,000 to roughly $850,000 a year as an incentive to finish out the Campaign for Carolina that officially ends in 2022. The university surpassed its fundraising goal a year early, but Routh and his team are still working to raise $1 billion for students scholarships and meet the individual fundraising goals of every school and unit on campus.
UNC-CH Board of Trustees Chair Dave Boliek said Routh’s resignation is “not unexpected” as he’s been through the full length of a “highly-publicized and intensive fundraising campaign.” Boliek said it’s not unusual for the development director to move on after that and he wished Routh well in his future endeavors.
Part-time consulting effort
Routh seemed to be approaching the transition out of university giving when he took a second job last summer as an advisor to a Charlotte investment firm with political and university connections. The university allowed him to work part-time as a consultant to New Republic Partners but Routh dropped that job after The News & Observer reported on the potential conflicts it presented.
Routh also launched a controversial investigation into the “leak of confidential donor information” related to the contract between Walter Hussman and the journalism school that now bears his name. The N&O published a story outlining the financial details of Hussman’s donor agreement, a document that UNC-CH refused to release but legal experts argue should be a public record.
Hussman and his $25 million gift came under fire after he interfered in journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones’s hire and tenure case. The university has also been criticized for that internal investigation that secretly surveilled faculty emails and computer storage systems.
In addition to his role as vice chancellor, Routh serves as the chief executive of the UNC-Chapel Hill Foundation Inc., a nonprofit corporation that receives money from donors on behalf of the university. He’s also the secretary on the board of directors of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Foundation Investment Fund Inc., which invests the university’s long-term assets.
Leading Carolina’s fundraising campaigns
When he steps down, Routh will have overseen the entire Campaign for Carolina that garnered the largest private gift in UNC-CH’s history — $100 million from Dr. Fred Eshelman for the Eshelman Institute for Innovation in the pharmacy school that is named after him. Hundreds of alumni, parents and corporations and others have given more than $1 million and 67 have given more than $10 million during this campaign.
Routh was critical in surpassing the campaign’s goals and building the right team to secure that money.
“I am incredibly grateful for his vision and leadership,” Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz said in a statement. “He built a roadmap that ensured our success for this campaign and beyond.”
The university will soon begin a search for Routh’s successor, a “leader who can bridge our current success with our goals for the future,” according to Guskiewicz.
Before becoming a vice chancellor, Routh served as the university’s director of gift planning and a managing director for U.S. Trust/Bank of America Private Wealth Management.
As Carolina’s director of gift planning, Routh helped facilitate the Carolina First Campaign that raised a record $2.38 billion over eight years. He has been vice chair of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Board of Visitors and chair of its Capital Campaign Planning Committee. He previously served as a board member and committee chair for the UNC Parents Council.
Routh graduated from UNC-CH in 1982 with bachelor’s degrees in economics and religious studies. He lives in Chapel Hill with his wife, Jenny, a Carolina alumna. Their daughters also graduated from Carolina and their son-in-law Amir Barzin, a family medicine physician and UNC-CH professor, leads the university’s COVID-19 testing program and advises the university on its pandemic response.
This story was originally published April 25, 2022 at 1:50 PM with the headline "UNC-Chapel Hill chief fundraiser David Routh is stepping down from university giving."
