No major university can grow and excel without a healthy mix of public and private funds. Private contributions leverage public funds and maximize taxpayer dollars. Through partnering with philanthropic investors, our university can sustain excellence and enhance the student experience, making our campuses learning destinations of choice.
Many of the donors who give major gifts to the University of Hawaiʻi do so to support a program, school, or area of study that they believe in. Without exception, their gift has a major impact on our students, faculty and campus community as a whole.
Recent Impact Stories
When diehard fans of UHM athletics learned that the cheer team raises its own funds to attend competitions or to travel in support of other teams, they put their fandom into action.
When he turned his tassel on high-school graduation day in 2017, he’d already accumulated 19 credits toward his bachelor’s degree.
Her commitment to higher education enabled more than 130 students to complete their college educations at University of Hawai‘i campuses.
For UH Mānoa doctoral student Emily Young, whales become most interesting when they die, sinking to the ocean floor to become food for thousands of animals.
2018 was a difficult year for many Hawai‘i residents. In April, historic rains brought landslides and flooding to Kaua‘i, wiping out homes and shutting down the main highway leading to the island’s north shore.
“I was terrible at talking to people,” says UH Mānoa junior Maria Ena Rose Bartolome, a student fundraiser in the University of Hawai‘i Foundation’s Student Calling Center. “I wasn’t connecting with people over the phone, and I was awkward. It took me two weeks to get my first pledge.
UH West Oʻahu’s largest donors were celebrated and honored on Friday, when plaques noting their contributions were unveiled on specially designed plaques in the newly opened Administration and Health Sciences Building.
Hawai‘i has approximately 1,500 children in foster care programs. Joanne Wood’s family foundation, the Michael B. Wood Foundation, advocates for these children. Wood said that while foster families protect children from dangerous family situations, it is far too common for children to be shuffled between foster families until they ‘age out’ of the system.
As part of the endowment, Kukahiko will receive $10,000 over two semesters to support the development of her program, Kauhale Kumu (teacher community), which focuses on the holistic retention of teachers in the Hawai‘i Department of Education (HIDOE) Hawaiian Immersion Program.
