MGO Scholarship to UofM?

Submitted by WFBlue on

I generally don't post new topics on the board, but after reading jMatt313GoBlue's story about his love of the University (http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/my-story-how-michigan-hockey-changed-my-household), and considering the high cost of tuition as well as the generousity of the members in the Hail to the Victors 2012 campaign, I was wondering if there would be interest in an annual fund raiser to support one or two Michigan students every year.  

Depending on the amount raised,  the proceeds could be used for tuition, books, etc.  I suppose the beneficiaries should be members of mgoblog, and I am sure that with some guidance from Brian et. al., we could come up with some appropriate criteria to ensure the recipients are deserving students at Michigan or prospective students. Many of you already support the University (financially and otherwise), but I thought that this would be a separate and unique avenue to the members of mgoblog.  My education at UofM has had such a major impact on my life and this site has allowed me to share my love of everything Michigan with hundreds of people I do not even know personally.  Accordingly, it seems appropriate that through this forum we could assist others with the opportunity to have similar life changing experiences that many of us have had at Michigan.

Many of you are students or recent graduates and I understand that it is important to save your  income for school or to support your families. I suspect, however, that there are members who would be eager to participate and have disposable income that could be contributed.  Considering $37,717 (and counting) has been raised in just a few days for the Hail to the Victors campaign,  I am sure we could generate significant financial assistance for deserving  students or prospective students of the University.  While Kickstarter is probably not the appropriate forum, there are other methods we might be able to utilize.  Your thoughts regarding an MGO Scholarship would be appreciated, including those that may indicate I am on the wrong track with this idea.

 

Vivz

March 24th, 2012 at 9:09 PM ^

MGO internship?

Put Brian in charge of it, make it a contest and whoever wins creates a little bit of content while in school and gets some bmoney for books etc. Have it just be per semester or something, gets a bunch of people writing. Could also have Brian send this person to non Football/Basketbal/Hockey events to expand content areas?

justingoblue

March 24th, 2012 at 9:14 PM ^

less intensive and with more support from the editorial team. They could take softball/baseball or chronicle the infancy of the lacrosse program and their transition to division one. Or they could do some grunt work with football/basketball that Heiko or Ace are unable to do because of their respective schedules, or Brian with hockey.

justingoblue

March 24th, 2012 at 11:37 PM ^

would be great for an internship, especially since they're both so grounded in statistics. Obviously the intern would need to try and make as many games as possible, but it's much easier to tell the story of a baseball/softball game through statistics and advanced metrics than a sport like hockey or lacrosse.

That, and I'm pretty sure baseball is fifth on the attendance food chain and softball is sixth, so there might be more clicks involved than with a sport like tennis or track (no hate there, lettered in both during high school).

MichiganMan2424

March 24th, 2012 at 9:09 PM ^

Greatest idea ever. And that has nothing to do with the fact that I'm an incoming freshman to Michigan next year coming from out of state...

LSAClassOf2000

March 24th, 2012 at 9:15 PM ^

...will anxiously await the chance to donate to such a cause on Kickstarter. I would gladly do what I can to send more people to my beloved alma mater. This is an excellent  idea. 

Coming out of school, if you want to work for a major regional utility, just let me know. We have a pretty good internship program that could stand some Michigan alums. 

rockydude

March 24th, 2012 at 9:17 PM ^

I read the same story, and it gave me those thoughts as well. Now that I am a few years older and an alum, I really enjoy hearing what is going on at the U. I saw how quickly Brian was able to finance the magazine, and it makes me wonder if we might not be able to do some good, a few dollars at a time. I like the idea that my modest contributions, when combined with those of the people I like to talk sports with, could add up and make a difference in someone's life. I think we'd all have a good vibe whenever we thought about it. An MGoScholar!

Of course, we'd have to send him to school in an official MGoTShirt to represent us all, but that is another story . . .

rob f

March 24th, 2012 at 9:21 PM ^

But it's going to take a bit of research by someone much more knowledgeable than me about legal requirements, Federal and State of Michigan tax ramifications and what-not before making this a reality.  Any lawyers (or others with expertise on setting up a such a scholarship) out there on the MGoBoard that can enlighten/guide the process of getting this up-and-running?

trueblueintexas

March 24th, 2012 at 11:58 PM ^

Just need to contact the endowment office. Typically it takes at least $20K to start a partial scholarship. That would provide a very small schollie. I mean very small.

Edit: I should add, It also requires approval of the requirements to select applicants. That is not an overly difficult thing to develop.

Mr.Mario86

March 24th, 2012 at 9:24 PM ^

This would be amazing. I'm only a Freshmen in High-school from Pennsylvania but I love Michigan. I play football for Varsity but I'm a small fella. I would die for a chance to go to UofM but it's way to expensive & I'm not good enough for a football scholarship.
Something like this could give people hope.

JHendo

March 25th, 2012 at 12:10 AM ^

Sounds about right. I was 5'10" 190 coming into freshman year, by the time my senior seaon ended I was 6'2" 270 with a decent amount of DII/III interest, and preferred walk on offers from 2 MAC schools. Nowhere near good enough for U of M and didn't want to be just a practice squad guy at NIU or WMU, so I called it quits. Regardless, the fact of the matter is that you'll grow, and those stats aren't bad for 15.

Dagger

March 24th, 2012 at 9:38 PM ^

1.  I love this idea.

2. Do you think that the quality of posting would improve if there was the chance of an internship or sholarship?

joshgannon

March 24th, 2012 at 9:35 PM ^

This would be amazing for students to get something like this. I'm a junior right now and I have started to visit schools and looking into prices, I'm going to have so much debt in when I get out of college.

rockydude

March 24th, 2012 at 9:37 PM ^

I have an idea that I think is kind of fun. Maybe every now and then, we could challenge ourselves each, not to somehow provide thousands, but simply to match the budget that we each spend on beer and snacks on a given M sports weekend. Might make the giving more fun, and I'm sure it would add up in a hurry.

Anyone else have a "campaign strategy", or whatever we should call it ?

TwistedBlues

March 24th, 2012 at 9:44 PM ^

This is weird. You are promoting a monetary scholarship fund on a blog that has a tab asking for donations to help run his business? Maybe you shouldn't be using another man's business venture, that you love so dearly, as a means of raising cash for a random blog poster?

cozy200

March 25th, 2012 at 9:06 AM ^

Agreed. You would be surprised at the "runoff" rev generated from this kind of publicity. Believe it or not there fans who do not know of this blog. Also a larger business support of sponsorships, ads, etc could very well increase with the further notoriety generated from this intiative. Giving back is more important than ever in this economu IMO.

Princetonwolverine

March 24th, 2012 at 9:45 PM ^

Like raising funds for walkathons we could sponsor things like

1) Denard 100yrd rushing and passing games

2) tackles for a loss

3) number of pointing moves by Brady during a game

4) number of arrests of MSU players

bronxblue

March 24th, 2012 at 9:46 PM ^

I like the idea, but more as a "man/woman about town" in A2, covering the smaller sports, the culture, non-sport events, etc.  That way, the intern isn't relied on for time-sensitive information but you also have a more general or fan viewpoint versus the in-depth analysis delivered by the rest of the staff.

zatsyuk

March 24th, 2012 at 9:51 PM ^

I'm a junior in high school and am probably going to attend U of M and looking at a nice amount of debt if I don't get any scholarships.

Jon06

March 24th, 2012 at 10:08 PM ^

i believe that, to have scholarship donations qualify as tax-deductible, you can't yourself control the process of selecting the recipient. this means there'd have to be some official endowment and selection process, which creates some administrative hassles.

but here's an idea: we could just start a book fund and cover books for any mgoposter who's been active around here for some arbitrary period of time (say, more than a year) before matriculation to UM. it'd run like $750/year/kid, which is really easy to raise, and it'd be unique across the internet, without necessarily sucking up all additional funds that people might put towards mgoprojects. i think the time period is important to prevent us getting overrun, but we could have a really neat effect on more people, and the amount of money is going to be a nominal contribution to any kid's bill anyway, unless we're somehow going to raise $30k/year/kid.

UFR: the book fund idea might just end up going primarily to legacy kids who don't need the extra cash anyway. and now that i've read jmatthe313goblue's story, i'd be down with just getting that kid a (partial) scholarship. i mean, hell, why not?

willow

March 24th, 2012 at 10:14 PM ^

Donors will most likely prefer to get a tax-deduction for their donation.  To do this outside the auspices of the University is time-consuming to administer and a bit more complicated from an IRS perspective (503C, IIRC).

Alternatively,  we might follow the example of the alumni clubs (or families who set up memorial funds).  Many clubs have scholarship funds (or, like Seattle, have their own full scholarships) that they award; however these funds are set up and monies are held/invested by the University.  The clubs decide who their recipients will be and the donors are assured that their gifts are tax-deductible.  I'm no longer near enough to a club to know if the procedures have changed (It was not difficult to do.), but there may be some mgoblogger who is familiar with it or who would be willing to contact either the alumni association or a university contact within the area that administers this type of fund to get the guidelines.

I do know that the Business School invests the university endowments and have performed with an admirable return even through the recent bad economic times.  This is a huge benefit given how diverse, unacquainted, and transient MGoBloggers may be over time!

James Burrill Angell

March 25th, 2012 at 12:04 AM ^

Actually, all of the University's endowed scholarship money is invested in one giant fund whether the scholarship benefits someone in B-School, Kinesiology, Engineering, LS&A, Student Life etc. I think we were told at tonights scholarship recipient event at the Art Museum that the collective endowment is worth $1.5 billion right now.the University has it's own team of investment gurus on campus, the leader of which has a ridiculous Wall St resume to use the pure size of this investment pool to get a far better return than the typical private investor with a mutual fund or private investment.