He left Fort Valley with two education degrees. He came back, through his estate, with $5.8 million. Fort Valley State University has received $5.8 million from the estate of Pastor Eddie D. Smith Sr. and his wife Martha Smith, the largest philanthropic gift in the university’s history, HBCU News reported on Tuesday, October 27.
The gift is an estate gift, planned years before it arrived and unrestricted by a campaign theme or a building name. The university says the money will support academic excellence and student success, the two priorities President Paul A. Jones named when the gift was presented by Kenneth Moye, executor of the Smith estate.
An educator’s two degrees
Smith was a two-time Fort Valley State graduate. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education in 1968 and a master’s degree in the same field in 1971, then spent his life in ministry and education. The university he left in 1971 is the same one his estate has now funded at a level no living donor has matched.
“This gift represents an extraordinary investment in the future of Fort Valley State University and, most importantly, in our students,” Jones said. “We are grateful to Eddie and Martha Smith for believing in the mission of this institution and recognizing the impact that FVSU has on the lives of our students, our communities and the state of Georgia.”
Why an estate gift lands differently
Campaign gifts arrive with announcements and naming ceremonies. Estate gifts arrive quietly, after a family has settled an estate, and they tend to reflect a lifetime rather than a moment. Fort Valley State, founded in 1895 in Fort Valley, Georgia, is at once a University System of Georgia institution, an HBCU and an 1890 land-grant institution, a combination the university says no other school in the world holds. For a school of that size and mission, a $5.8 million estate commitment from one alumnus sets a reference point every future planned gift will be measured against.
The university has not published a breakdown of how the $5.8 million will be split between academic programs and student support, and this article asserts none. What Jones has put on the record is the order of priorities: students first, in Georgia, at the school that trained the man who left the money.
Read more of The Social Register’s philanthropy coverage.
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