Gift Destinations
Through the Mount Holyoke Fund, you can direct your annual gift to one of the areas listed. Your Gift. Your Choice. Your opportunity to make a difference where it matters most to you.
Choose your destination
Your gift to this destination allows the College to meet emerging needs and challenges by providing the flexibility to direct funds to parts of the budget that need critical, immediate support. Such flexible gifts have a significant impact and are an essential component of every student’s Mount Holyoke experience.
Mount Holyoke empowers students to freely explore new ideas and vigorously debate and examine any topic or issue — no matter how controversial or polarizing. Students from 45 states and nearly 70 countries bring divergent beliefs and worldviews to the table, where our dynamic faculty push them to think critically and advocate fearlessly for what they believe in.
Gifts to Academic Enrichment support:
- 48 majors and hundreds of courses, including interdisciplinary and special majors and the dual-degree engineering program.
- Nexus concentrations in fields including archives and museums, data science, development studies, educational policy, engineering, global business, journalism, law and nonprofits.
- Three academic centers where students learn to become agents of change — globally competent, environmentally responsible, ready to lead.
- A Maker and Innovation Lab that encourages collaboration across different disciplines to unite creative thinking and technological fluency.
- Programming to build entrepreneurial competence and innovation through the Entrepreneurship Organizations and Society interdisciplinary minor and the Social Innovation Initiative.
From the beginning, Mount Holyoke has recognized the benefits of physical activity: for personal growth, for a balanced life, for camaraderie. Founder Mary Lyon was one of the country’s earliest advocates of physical education classes for women and, in the College’s first days, all students were required to walk a mile each day after breakfast. Today, our athletics and recreational programs and facilities offer students invaluable opportunities to build connections, develop crucial leadership skills, and sustain a healthy and active lifestyle.
Your gift to Athletics supports:
- Mount Holyoke’s 14 varsity sports and a growing number of club sports.
- Our beautiful Equestrian Center, deemed one of the most impressive riding facilities in the country.
- The ever-expanding fitness and recreational offerings based in the Kendall Sports and Dance Complex.
Mount Holyoke’s spectacular campus — the Gothic brick buildings, the majestic trees, the serene lakes, our iconic waterfalls — creates the perfect setting for our students’ rigorous academic study and personal growth and development. Rooted in the legacy of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted’s designs, Mount Holyoke’s campus is consistently recognized as one of the most beautiful in the country.
Gifts directed to Campus Preservation help the College:
- Maintain our more than 700 acres of grounds and 2 million square feet of interior spaces.
- Preserve our historic buildings — the earliest of which date back to 1810 (Pearsons Annex),1852 (the Pump House) and 1881 (the Williston Observatory).
- Protect the natural characteristics of campus, including the Botanic Garden’s living collection of more than 2,000 types of plants from six continents.
Mount Holyoke College, home to a remarkably diverse community, strives to foster a campus environment that is inclusive, pluralistic and free of discrimination.
Gifts to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion support projects and initiatives such as:
- The MoZone Peer Education Program, which aims to increase awareness and dialogue about social justice issues.
- Our five cultural centers, which provide resources for groups historically targeted and marginalized within society.
- Speakers who represent a wide spectrum of perspectives.
- Special events, including the Women of Color Trailblazers Leadership Conference and the Building on Our Momentum Learning Conference.
Mount Holyoke faculty win Pulitzer and Guggenheim awards, NASA grants and Carnegie Fellowships. They engage in cutting-edge research and collaborations and publish widely — often with undergraduate coauthors. And they inform and celebrate the career trajectories of their mentees, who as graduates shine on the campaign trail, before audiences, among investigative journalists, behind scanning electron microscopes and so much more.
Your gift to Faculty helps Mount Holyoke:
- Attract and retain professors who are dedicated to their students and passionate about their disciplines.
- Maintain a student-to-faculty ratio of 9 to 1, which keeps classes small and is a key factor in determining college rankings, as determined by U.S. News & World report.
- Offer programs — such as the Teaching and Learning Initiative and sabbaticals — that challenge faculty to grow as scholars and implement innovative and inclusive ideas to reach and inspire students.
Renowned as one of the most beautiful campus libraries in the country, the Williston Library houses the humanities, social sciences and science collections, which include newspaper, periodical and microfilm collections. Our Archives and Special Collections includes more than 9,000 linear feet of unpublished manuscript materials and 11,000 published volumes. Wherever a student chooses to study — in the MEWS area, the lovely Stimson Room, the main floor or in one of the hideaway rooms — every aspect of the library is central to their Mount Holyoke education.
Gifts to the Library and Archives support:
- Access to 6,360 journal titles, 800,000 physical volumes and many thousands of online resources.
- Expansion of collections that are responsive to our students’ evolving needs.
- Care and preservation of rare books and ephemera ranging from manuscripts and papyri fragments to diaries and valentines.
The Lynk — a combination of rigorous coursework, enhanced advising, alum mentoring, professional development, and experiential learning on and off campus — equips students to navigate a lifetime of career opportunities and trajectories. Centered around reflection and assessment, The Lynk challenges students to connect high-impact experiences with career exploration throughout their time at Mount Holyoke. Graduates are prepared to apply intellectual flexibility and critical thinking in workplace and community settings.
Your gift to The Lynk supports:
- Guaranteed funding for one summer internship or research opportunity for every student.
- Career development programming that engages 90 percent of the student body.
- The annual LEAP Symposium, where nearly 300 students present about internship and research experiences.
- Industry and site visits through The Lynk on the Road and the Career Development Center.
Mount Holyoke’s core mission has remained steadfast since the College’s founding in 1837: to offer students from all backgrounds an unparalleled opportunity to learn and shape their own futures. The exceptional diversity of experiences that students bring — to the classroom, the campus and the alum network — ensures that our graduates enter the world as global citizens. By directing your gift to one of our five Scholarship Aid destinations, you are investing in remarkable students from all socio-economic backgrounds.
Ways to support scholarship aid:
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General Scholarship Aid
Each year, more than 70 percent of Mount Holyoke students receive need-based aid, totaling nearly $50 million. Gifts to the general Scholarship Aid destination will go to providing access to the dynamic, rigorous Mount Holyoke education to students from all backgrounds. -
First-generation Student Scholarship Aid
First-generation students — those who are the first in their families to attend college and did or do not have parents, guardians or family systems to assist them in navigating the college process — face unique challenges throughout their time at Mount Holyoke. Gifts to this destination will provide scholarship aid specifically for first-generation students. -
Frances Perkins Scholarship Aid
Each year approximately 90 diverse and intellectually curious Frances Perkins scholars (FPs) are enrolled at Mount Holyoke. These students of nontraditional age who have not yet earned an undergraduate degree have followed an unconventional path to MHC, but have varied lived experiences that create an unparalleled opportunity for our entire community to learn, grow and evolve. Gifts to this destination will provide scholarship aid specifically for Frances Perkins Scholars. -
International Student Scholarship Aid
Each year, over 25% of the student body (400+ students) is made up of international students from over 70 countries. The undergraduate experience for these students is complicated by being farther away from their homes/support systems than most domestic students and having extra hurdles to navigate such as visas and other regulations. Gifts to this destination will provide scholarship aid specifically for international students.
The Mount Holyoke Fund Scholars Program is a unique opportunity for leadership donors to directly impact the life of a talented student. Gifts of $10,000 or more can be used to establish a one-year named scholarship in the amount of the gift through The Mount Holyoke Fund Scholars Program. MHF Scholar donors will receive a report about their scholar during the academic year with details about their studies and activities.
Please note that scholarship gifts made after March 31 may be assigned to a student in the next fiscal year.
Mount Holyoke students are challenged in class to develop their intellect, hone the power of their voices, and cultivate courage. But what happens outside of class is just as important and instructive. It’s where they learn not just how to think in this world, but how to be. With more than 100 student organizations and myriad activities that enrich life outside of the classroom, Mount Holyoke is a place to nurture existing passions and discover new talents, friends and goals.
Gifts to Student Life support:
- Mount Holyoke traditions — Convocation, Mountain Day, M&Cs, Founder’s Day, Vespers, Pangy Day, Canoe Sing, etc. — that bring the community closer together both in the moment and over time.
- Living-Learning Communities that enable students to connect around a shared interest or language by living together in specified residence halls.
- Crucial services such as Health Services, Counseling Service and Disability Services.
First generation and low income (FGLI) students bring unique strengths, skills and perspectives to Mount Holyoke's diverse learning community, and the College is invested in their success. As a nationally recognized First-gen Forward Institution, Mount Holyoke works diligently to help FGLI students navigate any academic, social, financial and career challenges they may face during their college experience.
Gifts to the Student Safety Net Fund provide assistance to currently enrolled FGLI students whose personal circumstances may require urgent additional financial help in order to access living necessities, technology or other items to support their academic experience, helping to offset costs for essential needs such as food, shelter or internet access.
Since its inception, Mount Holyoke has helped shape and define the field of higher education. We bring the same leadership and resolve to advancing a culture of sustainability on campus and beyond — by preparing students to tackle issues as environmental leaders, committing to environmentally sound practices and shaping a sustainable legacy for future generations. The College is committed to carbon neutrality by our 2037 bicentennial.
By directing your gift to Sustainability Initiatives, you support efforts to:
- Invest in energy efficiency and promote energy conservation.
- Retrofit historic buildings.
- Transition to carbon neutral sources for heating and electricity, such as the fall 2018 installation of a solar array atop the Field House in the Kendall Sports and Dance Complex.
- Enhance the Campus Living Laboratory Initiative, including the restoration ecology program and onsite student-faculty research and environmental monitoring.
Mount Holyoke is a leader in integrating technology throughout academic and cocurricular life. In science facilities ranked among the best in the U.S., students access everything from scanning and transmission electron microscopes and DNA sequencing equipment to a custom-built Mössbauer spectrometer and an atomic force microscope. Students across all disciplines have the opportunity to combine technology with their specific areas of study via the College's Maker and Innovation Lab. Wireless hotpoints are located throughout the campus, and our Information Commons features a staffed Diagnostic Center, collaborative workstations with large-format plasma screens, and peer support for web and multimedia applications.
Your gift to Technology and Teaching Tools helps provide and maintain:
- Assistive software and technology for students with disabilities.
- Digital music and arts laboratories.
- Advanced scientific instrumentation, which is used to perform state-of-the-art research.
- Mediated classrooms, which provide tools to shape student engagement, learning and success.