Some donors want the limelight by donating huge amounts of money to various institutes. On the other hand, there are some donors who donate and don’t even reveal their identity. Recently, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) received a generous donation as an ‘unrestricted gift’. The university has received a whopping donation of $140 million for unrestricted funds. Well, the donor is an alumnus who wishes to stay anonymous. This MIT donation, designed as an ‘unrestricted gift’, means that MIT can freely decide on how and where to spend the amount of $140 million.
Anonymous MIT Donation of $140 Million
Even though this alumnus wants to maintain anonymity, he mentioned a few things regarding the MIT donation in a statement. He said that no one ever made it without another one’s help through life. Adding to this he mentioned that he was a past recipient of the university’s financial aid. As a part of it, he tremendously benefitted from this opportunity to pursue the MIT education. He also said that he extremely appreciates all the ways in which MIT has shaped him. Furthermore, he hopes that the gift inspires others to give back to the university; and also pay it forward to the society shared by all of us.
Regarding this generous MIT donation, the university posted on Facebook saying that this contribution provides the flexible resources which can reach across the entire institute. It allows MIT to invest in the daring and high-risk ideas. Also, it allows MIT to address some of the most urgent challenges of the world; and sustain its support for faculty, students, and the physical campus.
Unrestricted Funds Boost Advancements
The early-stage ideas that are risky to get backing from the traditional sources are advanced by such unrestricted funds. To encourage and support the work of MIT’s students and faculty, this type of flexible funding helps a lot. It provides resources like staff support, equipment, laboratories, etc. Not only this, such unrestricted funds go to the financial aid for MIT students also.
MIT President, L. Rafael Reif, said that unrestricted sources are a vital fuel helping big ideas take off, for the students and faculty of MIT.
In 2016, from MIT’s general budget, the unrestricted funds covered almost 20 percent of financial aid and the undergraduate scholarships. Moreover, this amount is budgeted to increase in the years 2017 and 2018, reports NBC Boston.
Projects Supported by Unrestricted Funds
MIT has seen support from unrestricted financial aid in many projects. This includes the faculty’s work for breaking into areas like the Alzheimer’s disease. It also included a physics research where the faculty played a role to detect the biggest collection of antimatter particles that are recorded in space. This helps to advance the fundamental knowledge about universe.
When there are restricted funds, the institute has to use it as per the ideas of the donors. While, with unrestricted financial aid like the $140 million MIT donation, the university can use it for any purpose regarding early-stage research, campus development or maintenance, education or research.
MIT’s Campaign for a Better World
For MIT’s Campaign for a Better World, of $5 billion, the university has entered the second year of the public phase. The university raised $3.4 billion for this initiative as of June 1. This funding is significantly towards achieving the campaign goal. Notably, over 87,000 alumni as well as friends supported the MIT’s research for various issues regarding humanity and environment.
In the Facebook post by the institute, it also added a hash tag in the end- #MITBetterWorld.
