The University raked in more than $600 million during 2006, the year that saw the launch of the largest capital campaign in the university’s history.

Since the public launch of Yale Tomorrow in September, which ended the campaign’s two-year silent phase, Yale has raised more than $100 million, bringing the campaign total to $1.44 billion, said Vice President for Development Inge Reichenbach. The money raised since September includes a gift of an undisclosed amount to endow the Grand Strategy program as well as an anonymous $30 million gift whose purpose has not yet been announced.

The pace of fundraising since the launch has surprised Yale officials.

“We expected a falling off [after the launch], but we sustained a very high rate of giving,” University President Richard Levin said.

Fundraising for the campaign has been brisk despite the fact that the University is now beginning to seek gifts from a broader base of donors who have not shown the same history of giving as those solicited during the silent phase, Levin said.

At about $630 million, total receipts in calendar year 2006 are much higher than in the recent past. In fiscal year 2005, Yale raised a total of $286 million, according to data from the Chronicle of Higher Education. Stanford and Harvard Universities raised around $600 million each in 2005.

The gift to the popular Grand Strategy program was endowed by Nicholas Brady ’52, a former United States senator and secretary of the Treasury, and Charlie Johnson ’54, a businessman and former Army lieutenant.

The donation has ensured that the program will continue even after the retirement of its current faculty, who all teach in other departments. The endowment will permanently fund faculty, lectures and fellowships specifically for Grand Strategy. Brady said he and Johnson hope their donation will inspire the development of similar programs at other universities.

“This program is, in my view, revolutionary,” Brady said. He said he thinks the program benefits more than just students who want to go into intelligence, politics or diplomacy and that it could give all students “additional tools to be effective members of society.”

Yale is the only university of its type that teaches Grand Strategy, said history professor John Gaddis, who is one of the three faculty members that run the program. While similar courses might be taught at war colleges and the military academies, the closest Yale’s peers come to offerings similar to Grand Strategy is political science, he said. Interest in the program has taken off since Sept. 11, 2001, Gaddis said.

“In terms of teaching Grand Strategy at a major civilian university I think we are unique,” Gaddis said. “One of the things we found when we started teaching this program was that it attracted interest among two groups: students and alumni, who were pleased that Yale was teaching Grand Strategy.”

Of all of the gifts received over the past year, 45 percent will go into the endowment, Reichenbach said. Thirteen percent will fund building projects, and the remainder will be spent this year on specific projects set out by the donors.

Yale officials hope to raise a total of $3 billion by 2011.