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
“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.
Kyung Sun “Kay” Chung is the benefactor of several scholarship endowments at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, aiming for increased understanding and appreciation of U.S. linkages to Korea’s culture, economy and law.
Individuals can make a difference, even in face of enormous obstacles. Cindi Punihaole, founder of the Kahalu‘u Bay Education Center, was my initial call-to-action. Meeting Ruth Gates was the catalyst for everything I did next.
Dalyn Kupuka‘a is a 2015 Kohala High School graduate who loves the ocean and cares deeply about his community. Because the fire science student at Hawai‘i Community College strives for excellence in the classroom so he can serve Hawai‘i Island, he has received the Robert Hickox Memorial Scholarship from the Hawai‘i Island Safety & Security Professionals Association.
Members of the Silicon Valley and San Francisco chapters of the American Council of the Blind field tested the UniD app at Muir Woods National Monument in April 2018.
Nearly half of 2012’s incoming kindergarten students did not attend pre-kindergarten programs, according to the Hawai‘i State School Readiness Assessment. Three years later, fewer than half of the students in this class had reached reading proficiency for third-graders.
