At $3.5 million, NKU is more than halfway to its goal of $6 million for its Go Gold campaign after only a year and a half of fundraising.

The campaign will be distributed among four main priorities. According to Eric Gentry, vice president of university advancement, $3 million will go to scholarships, $1.5 million to facilities, $1 million for academic programs, and half a million for the Go Gold excellence fund.

According to the website nkugogold.nku.edu, NKU hopes the campaign will increase scholarship funding to help student-athletes further their education, strengthen academic support so the school can continue to meet and exceed NCAA regulations and improve athletic facilities.

Gentry said that when scandals with former Athletic Director Scott Eaton occurred, the university put a hold on the campaign. However since the initiation of Ken Bothof as athletic director, the campaign is in full swing again.

“What Ken has done is re-engage students, reengaged the coaches, reengaged the staff over there in looking at what those priorities are over there,” Gentry said.

The athletic department has also been reworking its strategic plan with the campaign over the last year, according to Gentry.

Gentry said this includes going through the initial goals of the campaign, reevaluating them and deciding if they are still the main focus of the university.

“I would expect that as they come out of the strategic planning that scholarships will be the top priority,” Gentry said. “I would expect that the excellence fund continue to be a priority … I would expect that they’re also going to be looking at some facility upgrades, specifically baseball.”

Gentry also said that any money raised from the campaign goes directly to support Norse athletics.

“The Go Gold campaign is to directly support student-athletes and Norse athletics,” Gentry said. “So that impacts the entire student life on campus, but the money we are trying to raise with that does go directly to athletics.”

Gentry says that the campaign as a whole is a very donor-driven campaign, adding that they have many volunteers to help with community outreach and finding donors.

“We have a great group of volunteer’s that have been supportive from the very beginning of it, and they’ve stayed with us through this transition,” Gentry said. “They are really helping us reach our community and engaging the institution and potential new supporters, reengaging old supporters and bringing them back into the opportunity.”

As for where the donors money goes, it is completely up to them, according to Athletic Director Ken Bothof.

“Sometimes the donor will choose scholarships to support male student athletes, some will choose to support female student athletes,” Bothof said. “Some will say to use it for facilities, some will say that it’s just for general for the athletic department to use it. But it is really up to the donor who dictates where it will go.”

Gentry says that ideally the Go Gold campaign would be complete within the next two to three years.

“That would be ambitious for athletics because they haven’t raised that much money at one point in the past,” Gentry said.

The total goal of the campaign is high, but Gentry attributes its quick success rate to the fact that it is the top fundraising priority for the university right now.