Fundraising for a planned 24,000-square-foot academic building at Brite Divinity School got a boost in August with the approval of a $1.5 million challenge grant.

The J.E. and L.E. Mabee Foundation, a Delaware nonprofit with offices in Tulsa, is offering the money contingent on the school raising $1.2 million in matching funds.

“It’s a challenge,” D. Newell Williams, Brite president told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “We need help from other people who care about ministerial education. I’m very confident that we will get this done.”

A five-year campaign at the school has already raised about $12 million from friends, alumni, churches and other foundations.

Williams said officials believed they needed five years to raise about $15 million for the building and an endowment to operate it.

“We didn’t bargain on a recession,” he said, adding that with the new grant, “a successful completion of the campaign is in sight.”

The W. Oliver and Nell A. Harrison Building will be directly east of the seminary’s Jo Ann and Wayne Moore Building and include classrooms, seminar rooms, a technology-enhanced preaching laboratory, faculty and administrative offices, and a large area for lectures, musical events and special dining functions.

Williams said the seminary has outgrown the Moore building, which was built in 1952. When it was built, there were about 50 students and six faculty members. There are now 240 students and 23 faculty members.

The new building is named after Oliver Harrison, who served on the school’s board when it voted unanimously to admit African-American students.