The Office of Gift Planning talks to W. Eric L. Grimson about how philanthropy for people, places, and flexible funding helps MIT meet core needs.
Why is sustained support for MIT core needs essential?
For the MIT community to continue its mission-driven work in education, research, and innovation, we need to foster the Institute’s financial health. Our students, faculty, and researchers depend on support provided for people through scholarships, fellowships, and professorships; for places, encompassing campus infrastructure from buildings to compute resources; and for flexibility in the form of unrestricted gifts. Together, these three areas provide foundational support for the Institute, today and tomorrow, and empower our brilliant minds to do what they do best—produce game-changing solutions for the world’s toughest problems.
What are MIT’s core needs right now?
MIT’s most pressing current need is flexible funding. This includes unrestricted gifts, which enable us to seize opportunities, explore the unknown, and remain resilient as we navigate new pressures in an unpredictable geopolitical and economic environment.
Gifts that help MIT attract and nurture extraordinary people, for example, through undergraduate scholarships, are a powerful investment in access, future potential, and MIT’s long-standing commitment to student financial aid. Similarly, graduate student fellowships help us recruit outstanding researchers who are our future scientific and engineering leaders, while professorships are among our best tools for backing distinguished faculty and recognizing rising stars.
Contributions to the evolution of MIT’s physical campus and compute infrastructure, meanwhile, catalyze our community’s capabilities and set the stage for the Institute’s next century.
Can you talk more about the importance of unrestricted gifts?
Approximately 45% of MIT’s campus operating budget relies on unrestricted dollars. I am grateful to the alumni and friends who give in this way as it shows tremendous faith in our ability to direct funds where they are most needed. Such gifts sustain fundamental education and research needs; advance critical initiatives in areas such as climate change, health care, AI, and manufacturing; and help MIT stay nimble in the face of ongoing and emerging complexities such as reduced federal research funding and new tax burdens on the returns from our endowment.
DISCOVER
Unrestricted funds are also critical to our financial aid program. Starting in 2025, undergraduates with family income below $200,000 attend MIT tuition-free. We are also one of only nine colleges in the United States that does not consider applicants’ ability to pay as part of their admissions process and that meet the full demonstrated financial need for all undergraduates. Part of why this is possible is because of unrestricted contributions, which account for half of all MIT undergraduate scholarships and graduate financial aid.
How can planned gifts make a difference?
Planned gifts help secure MIT’s financial future while offering the opportunity for donors to maximize the impact of their giving with options that fit their current stage in life. The resources that derive from planned gifts such as bequests and life-income gifts frequently focus on MIT core needs, providing flexible funds and supporting our community through scholarships, fellowships, and professorships.
When I think about the impact of planned gifts, what stands out too is their permanence. They allow us to look ahead because they provide steady resources we know we can count on. Planned gifts are also deeply personal. They reflect a donor’s values and trust in MIT’s mission, and they leave a legacy that lives on in every student educated here and every innovation that emerges from our community. That’s the true power of planned giving: It ensures that the work we do today will continue to transform society for generations.