The Campaign for Bates debuted in spring 1978 with a goal of $12.5 million and concluded in 1984 with $21.4 million raised. "The Campaign for Bates was dedicated to strengthening the College's fundamental institutional resources: endowment, buildings and equipment," President T. Hedley Reynolds wrote in 1984.

A $4.1 million grant from the Olin Foundation late in the campaign, made public during a surprise forum in the Chapel by President Reynolds on March 26, 1984, would make possible a new arts center. Other campaign funds helped to build Merrill Gymnasium ($4.75 million raised); established the College's first computer network ($1.1 million); improved the George and Helen Ladd Library ($900,000 raised); and, thanks to a late-campaign bequest from the estate of Joseph A. Underhill, Class of 1917, made possible the eventual construction of Underhill Arena in 1995.

Endowment gifts totaled $4.6 million, pushing the Bates endowment from $8 million to $27 million.

The campaign's national chair was Fred A. Smyth '36, who died April 7, 1984.