THE MILLIKIN FUND
The Millikin Fund directly affects the lives of our students and campus community – and does so immediately since gifts to the Fund are used to fill the gap created by the costs of the Millikin student experience that are unmet by tuition, room, and board.
Your dollars are put to work daily, helping to pay for the very things that maintain a quality Millikin experience, including a low student-to-faculty ratio, excellent instruction, updated library resources, technology upgrades and student scholarships. In fact, we would need to raise an additional $53 million in endowment funds to gain the income that is provided by $2.2 million in total annual gifts to the Millikin Fund.
SCHOLARSHIP
Your Scholarship Support Makes A Personal Difference to Our Students
Attending college gives our students the chance to pursue passions and develop skills that lead to lives of meaning, value and professional success. However, paying for any college can be a significant challenge for students and their families. Despite the fact that Millikin does everything possible to hold down costs, more than 97 percent of our students must receive financial aid each year. Many Millikin students would not be able to attend the university without scholarship support.
Endowed scholarships are a vital way to help make up the difference between what it actually costs Millikin to deliver on the promise of education for our students and what students and their families can afford to pay. An endowed scholarship helps fill in that financial gap for generations of bright, talented and deserving Millikin students. It is a personal legacy for the donor that will live on forever at the university.
A Scholarship Benefits You, Too
The joy you receive from helping our students pursue their dreams is a valuable additional benefit to establishing a Millikin scholarship. As a benefactor, you will have the opportunity to learn each year about the individual lives that have been transformed by your gift. In some cases, you may be able to meet with your recipient(s) to learn about the direct impact of your scholarship and experience the joy of giving firsthand.
Many of our alumni also enjoy the satisfaction of setting up a scholarship as a recognition of the financial support they received when they were Millikin students. It's a thank-you gift that spans future generations and renews the cycle of giving.
What is an Endowed Scholarship?
An endowed scholarship is established with funds that have been donated to Millikin by alumni, friends, corporations or foundations. This money is invested in an endowment fund managed by the university, and a portion of the income earned by the fund creates a yearly student scholarship. The remaining portion of the earned income is returned to the endowment fund so it can grow and yield additional scholarship support, year after year. The endowment fund itself is not spent so that the scholarship can live on forever at Millikin to provide assistance to deserving students.
Establishing an endowed scholarship at Millikin requires an initial gift of $10,000, which can be given all at once or built up over a period of time. The process is usually very simple, and gifts may be added to your scholarship fund at any time.
Scholarship gifts may be made in a variety of ways:
- A check or credit card outright gift.
- A pledge made over a period of up to five years.
- A direct payment plan with a bank or other financial institution.
- A gift of stocks or other assets.
- An estate or memorial gift.
- A charitable gift annuity or charitable trust.
- By making Millikin a beneficiary of a life insurance policy.
Some employers will match charitable gifts, which could further increase the value of your scholarship; check with your company's human resources office to find out if your company offers this benefit.