Make an Impact for Future Lions
What better way to impact a student than by making a college degree more affordable for them? Scholarship gifts do just that. Consider some of the benefits of funding a scholarship at Missouri Southern:
- Get to know “your” student! All recipients of Foundation scholarships at MSSU write thank you letters to their donors. You are free to contact the student to get to know them once you find out who is receiving your award.
- Scholarship donors are invited to an annual dinner with their recipients.
- Scholarships are a great way to honor or memorialize a loved one or someone who impacted your life.
- You determine the criteria for awarding your scholarship! You can specify your recipient by major, year in school, geographic location or other criteria.
- All gifts supporting scholarships made through the Missouri Southern Foundation are considered charitable gifts for tax purposes.
Scholarships awarded through the Missouri Southern Foundation are either "Patron's Scholarships" or "Endowed Scholarships":
- Patron’s scholarships: These scholarships are funded annually by the donor. The entirety of the gift is then disbursed to the recipient. Think of an MSSU Patron’s Scholarship as “money in, money out”. For example, a donor wants to start a scholarship in accounting. The donor makes a gift to the Foundation for $1,000. A campus committee selects the recipient based on the criteria established by the donor. The student then receives a credit of $1,000 in their MSSU account. Patron’s scholarships must be funded each year to be awarded.
- Endowed scholarships: While endowed scholarships require larger donations to establish, once in place they generate scholarship money in perpetuity. The minimum endowment level at MSSU is $25,000. Once an endowed scholarship fund has reached this amount, the money is invested. Only the earnings from that investment are spent for the scholarship; the corpus is never touched. Endowments can be added to over time to increase the amount of spendable money coming from the earnings. Note: endowments do not have to be created all at once; rather, donors can pledge annual gifts over a period of years to reach the endowment level.
Want to know what kind of impact Foundation scholarships have at Missouri Southern?
- In the 2022-2023 academic year private donors funded 82 patron’s scholarships and 242 endowed scholarships
- A total of 894 students received Foundation scholarships!
- Missouri Southern students received more than $1.3 million in privately funded scholarships.
To discuss funding a Missouri Southern Foundation scholarship, please call 417-625-9615 and ask to speak with a member of the Office of Development.
