Student Affinity Groups Turn to Alumni for Funding Amid DEI Office Closures

After the College restructured its diversity offices over the summer — leaving student affinity group leaders unsure about the availability of grants for club initiatives — some groups are seeking other avenues of funding, including alumni outreach.

The Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations, Women’s Center, and Office for BGLTQ Student Life served as sources of funding for many student affinity groups on campus, according to group leaders.

In July, the College closed the three offices — which primarily served minority students, LGBTQ students, and women — folding all programming into a new Harvard Foundation under the Office of Culture and Community.

The closures came amid University-wide structural changes to diversity offices and programming — following repeated demands from the Trump administration for Harvard to end all programming related to diversity, equity, and inclusion with billions of dollars of federal funding on the line.

Daisy S. Gonzalez ’27, co-president of Latinas Unidas de Harvard College, said the organization was “really worried” following initial rumors of the Women’s Center potentially shutting down late in the spring semester.

“We do receive HUA funding as a recognized student org, but when it came for larger events, we would rely on the Women’s Center and the Foundation,” Gonzalez said.

Harvard-Radcliffe Asian American Association co-president Priyanka Mukhara ’26 said the Harvard Foundation was a “huge supporter of everything that we were doing.”

“Most of our major events were at least funded in part by the Foundation,” Mukhara added.

Under the redesigned Foundation, grants will likely be distributed for events clearly marked as open to all students, but not affinity group board meetings, narrowing the guidelines for funding eligibility. But decisions on funding allocation have not been finalized, according to an August meeting between Foundation staff and Peer Advising Fellows.

Given the uncertainty surrounding the availability and extent of grants under the new Foundation, some student leaders said they are turning to alumni for support for club initiatives.

“It’s always something that we’ve been wanting to do as an organization, but given the fact that sources of funding internally seem to be more uncertain now, the alumni funding aspect definitely seems more pertinent than it did before,” Mukhara said.

Gonzalez said alumni of Latinas Unidas have seemed “more than happy to help” amid the uncertainty in the group’s funding.

“At this point, it’s just restructuring from getting financial help from University offices to hopefully reaching out to the network,” she said.

When Harvard announced that it would not fund any affinity celebrations for this year’s Commencement, several alumni groups — including the Coalition for a Diverse Harvard — stepped in to organize and host unofficial ceremonies in May.

Michael G. Williams ’81, a founding member and current board member of the Coalition, said the board leaders “definitely see the need” to “step up and provide support” to the student organizations for this academic year.

Williams added that the Coalition plans to discuss forms of support for affinity groups at their upcoming meeting this weekend.

Athena L.M. Lao ’12, president of the Harvard Asian American Alumni Alliance, also said the group is open to supporting student organizations and encouraged students to maintain “open lines of communication” with various alumni organizations.

“We want to be there for students. Students become alumni, which is part of our membership,” she said.

“We want to support them, and as long as there’s communication from students to us, we’ll do what we can to help,” Lao added.

—Staff writer Alexander W. Anoma can be reached at alexander.anoma@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @AnomaAlexander.

—Staff writer Chantel A. De Jesus can be reached at chantel.dejesus@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @c_a_dejesus.