Annual Fund: 'The Power of Collective Giving'

"Annual Fund giving is unrestricted giving, which is critical to enabling the College to meet a range of necessary expenses throughout the year that are not otherwise funded by the endowment," says George Baker '74, chair of the Annual Fund. "With a significant portion of Hamilton's endowment restricted in use to specified targeted purposes, the adequacy of unrestricted funds is enormously important.

"The Annual Fund also represents the pooling of many smaller gifts — the power of collective giving."

With more than 50 percent of graduates giving to the Annual Fund each year, Hamilton consistently ranks among the top one percent of colleges and universities in the nation in participation. Some of the ways in which the Annual Fund is making a difference:

GOLD Scholars Program

For each $15,000 contributed by the GOLD Group — Graduates Of the Last Decade — Hamilton names a GOLD Scholar based on financial need and student performance. To date, 14 GOLD Scholars have been chosen. More ...

Leap Year Scholar

A challenge from Jack Withiam '71 — an average of 29 gifts for each of the 29 days of February 2008 from the 29 classes of 1979-2007 would earn an additional $29,000 gift from Withiam himself — led to more than 1,000 gifts and pledges and the creation of a Leap Year Scholarship. In all, the Annual Fund contributes the equivalent of 26 percent of all Hamilton student scholarship aid.

Summer Research on Campus

Each summer more than 100 students stay on campus to do research in the sciences, social sciences and humanities, working in close collaboration with faculty members and with one another. The Annual Fund supports their efforts, providing Hamilton students with the kind of hands-on learning ­experience usually available only to graduate students. More ...

Continuing Faculty Support

Unrestricted gifts are used to enhance faculty compensation to ensure that Hamilton is able to hire and retain the best teachers, and then to support their scholarship, research and professional development.

Student-Life Iinitiatives

Outside the classroom, unrestricted gifts support a wide range of student groups, events and activities — such as Adirondack Adventure and the Urban Service Experience — that enrich the social and intellectual dimensions of life at Hamilton as well as the College's relationship with the surrounding region.

Wellness and Fitness

The continually growing number of fitness and health programs and participants on campus speaks to the importance of physical education to the liberal arts. More than 300 people use the Charlean and Wayland Blood Fitness and Dance Center on a typical weekday; more than 200 sign up for classes each season.

Campus Sustainability

Hamilton's abiding commitment to sound environmental practices is supported in part by the Annual Fund.