NORTHAMPTON — Smith College on Wednesday announced it has received a “transformational” gift totaling $50 million — the largest single donation in the college’s history — to support financial aid and career development.
Of the $50 million donation, the college will designate $40 million toward financial aid and $10 million toward career development, per the wishes of the donor, a Smith alumna who wished to stay anonymous.
“When she spoke with me, she said she wanted it to be a transformational gift for Smith, and it will be,” Smith College President Kathleen McCartney said Wednesday.
The alumna donated through a private foundation, citing “an obligation to pay it back” to the college for its personal and professional impact on her life, according to a statement the college shared.
Previously, the largest single donation that the college had received totaled $16 million.
The donation will give low- and middle-income students more access to the college, McCartney said, and will go a long way toward helping Smith become a need-blind college.
“We are not a need-blind school yet,” McCartney said, “and that means that every year, there are students we’d like to admit, and we run out of financial aid dollars to fund them.”
The college still needs around $160 million more in funding to become need-blind, McCartney said. But this donation is “a big step forward” toward achieving this goal, she noted. Currently, the college meets full demonstrated need to all students who meet financial aid deadlines.
The college will also use the gift to make career services a four-year experience, McCartney said. Building upon the college’s career services is also a matter of equity, McCartney said, as lower- or middle-income students often do not have the same access to networking as higher-income students.
As colleges around the country feel the financial impact caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the donation came at a particularly significant time, McCartney said.
“Frankly, we all needed a little good news, and this is certainly the best of good news,” McCartney said. “When you think of someone demonstrating that level of generosity to support future levels of generations, it’s quite inspirational.”
Smith’s endowment currently remains just below $2 billion, according to McCartney.
But financial losses associated with the pandemic and a shift to an all-remote semester have led the college to enact measures such as full or partial furloughs for 230 employees throughout all or part of the fall and interterm semesters.
When asked if the gift can help the college save jobs, McCartney said that because the donation is designated specifically for financial aid and career services, the donation will not have an effect on jobs. The gift will be paid to the college over the course of several years, she noted, and will not allow the college to reach further into its financial reserves for this purpose.
Jacquelyn Voghel can be reached at jvoghel@gazettenet.com.