HUA to Accept Direct Donations After $10K Gift From Alum

The Harvard Undergraduate Association is accepting direct donations for club funding, following a $10,000 donation from former Undergraduate Council member Ian ​​T. Simmons ’98-’00.

Simmons, who is related through marriage to Harvard Corporation senior fellow Penny S. Pritzker ’81, made the donation early last month — opening the door for an independent source of revenue for student organizations.

HUA Co-Presidents Abdullah Shahid Sial ’27 and Caleb N. Thompson ’27 hope to use these funds to get closer to meeting club funding requests, which typically exceed one million dollars each semester.

The HUA has historically relied on the Student Activities Fee, an optional $200 payment in student tuition, for the bulk of its funding. But as more students have opted out of the SAF, the Dean of Students Office took action — stepping in to cover the dip in HUA funding last year.

Sial and Thompson promised to “lobby the DSO to consistently contribute to the club funding pool” during their campaign last spring. Once elected, though, they also spoke of their plans to establish a channel for alumni to donate to student organizations, amid federal funding cuts. Their ultimate goal is for student life to “not be fully financially dependent on the College.”

Sial, an international student from Pakistan, has been an outspoken critic of the Trump administration’s attacks on the University. He said he connected with alumni and potential donors through his activism.

“While I was speaking at a few protests and engaging with requests on national television when international students were being directly attacked by President Trump, I had many, many individuals reach out who were alums, who were donors, who wanted to express support, and were wondering how they would help the program,” Sial said.

But before these pledged donations could be accepted, Sial and Thompson needed to find $10,000.

“For us to get a gift account, we needed a donation,” he said. “The College told us that if you have a pledge willing to donate $10,000, then they can get the ball rolling on making gift accounts.”

“This is a chicken and egg problem,” he added, explaining that smaller donations were “useless” to the HUA without the initial $10,000.

They found a solution in early August, when Simmons agreed to donate $10,000 to set up the gift accounts.

“Creating more opportunities for undergraduates is especially important at this challenging time for higher education,” Simmons, a member of the College’s National Advisory Board on Public Service and the Harvard Kennedy School Center for Public Leadership’s Leadership Council, wrote in a statement to The Crimson.

Now, anyone can make a donation through the Harvard Alumni website. All donations will be funneled through a gift account run by the University, which takes a 15 percent gift tax for their services of managing the finances.

While a vast majority of the HUA’s entire budget goes towards funding student organizations, Sial and Thompson have clarified that all donations will go towards clubs. Last year, 85 percent of the HUA’s budget was allocated to student organizations.

“When we ask for donations, we make it very, very clear this will be used on student clubs themselves,” Sial said. “We will make sure that all of that money goes to student clubs themselves, and it’s not part of our own operating budget.”

The Dean of Students Office also clarified that this additional source of HUA funding will not factor into how much SAF funding the association — and student organizations — will be able to receive.

“This gift account is not factoring into decisions for student activities fee allocations,” Andy Donahue, Assistant Dean of Student Engagement and Leadership, said. “This is an HUA-driven initiative to find additional resources and funds for student clubs and organizations.”

The co-presidents hope to establish a system where anyone can donate without needing to be contacted on an individual basis.

“We just leveraged whoever we knew at the moment, and they just happened to be people who were against international students being threatened to this extent,” Sial said. “Once the infrastructure is properly set up, this won’t be a distinction which we will be drawing, or will be drawn. Anyone who is interested, they will be able to donate to us and to maintain student life.”

—Staff writer Nina A. Ejindu can be reached at nina.ejindu@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @nina_ejindu.

—Staff writer Claire L. Simon can be reached at claire.simon@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @ClaireSimon.