Most gifts to Harvey Mudd College are unrestricted, meaning that the donor has given the administration and the Board of Trustees the freedom to apply the gift to the greatest need of the college at the time. That might include balancing the budget, carrying out extraordinary repairs, or acquiring some special equipment.

Gifts for endowed scholarships, endowed professorships, and endowed student research fellowships are actively sought by the college, for they assure the continuation of very significant functions within the college’s priorities. From time to time, the college has engaged in special fundraising efforts to build needed buildings. Any function that the donor expects to see happen over a long period of time should be endowed in order to assure its continuation.

There is also a wide range of support:  annual scholarships, academic department discretionary funds, support for various student activities, special lecture programs and prizes.

Since philanthropy is a voluntary action, the donor of any gift certainly has the “right”’ to prescribe the use of any donation. But it’s a two-way street, in that the receiving organization needs to be able to assure the donor that the gift will not only be useful, but will actually be used in the way the donor intends. The questions that the college explores before accepting some gifts are:

• How will this gift further our educational purpose and/or support our students?
• Can this gift be managed within existing programs?
• Is the size of the proposed gift consistent with the expectations of the donor?
• Will the donor accept future modifications if the original purpose becomes obsolete or impossible for the college to achieve?

The Advancement staff will consult with donors and seek to arrive at the implementation of a gift agreement that meets needs and expectations all around—for the donor and the college.