50th Reunion Giving

In short … everything! All gifts given to Bowdoin from July 1 following your 45th Reunion through June 30 of your 50th Reunion year, and pledges for gifts that will be fulfilled within the four years following your 50th Reunion are counted for your 50th gift.

Your gifts include:

Annual Gifts

Alumni Fund Gifts

Gifts to the Alumni Fund have an immediate impact on the Bowdoin experience for each student across campus. Every year, Bowdoin receives unrestricted alumni support through participation at levels matched by few colleges. The main areas of support include:

• Bowdoin's Greatest Need (Unrestricted): providing crucial flexibility for sudden needs and immediate priorities.
• Academics: the promise of an enduring and transformative liberal arts education.
• Arts and Culture: supporting the College’s museums, performances, concerts, and lectures.
• Career Exploration and Development: ensuring resources and opportunities for students to land a first job and build a career.
• Comprehensive Aid: ensuring access to a Bowdoin experience with additional financial support to students in need.
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiatives: ensuring an equal and inclusive experience and preparing students to understand complex issues of difference, power, and inequity.
• Environmental Stewardship: supporting green initiatives and facilities upgrades.
• Financial Aid: ensuring that family income is never a barrier to attending the College.
• Health and Wellness: equipping students with skills to prioritize their own health and wellness.
• Student Life: supporting residential spaces where students find—and make—their Bowdoin “home.”

Polar Bear Athletic Fund Gifts

Ensuring that our talented student-athletes and coaches have the resources they need to compete at the highest level in a manner consistent with our values.

Ways to fund your gift

• Cash
• Appreciated securities
• IRA Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD)
• Employer matching gifts
• Distributions or grants from donor advised funds, charitable lead trusts, or family foundations

Capital/Endowment Gifts

Gifts to the endowment ensure support to Bowdoin in perpetuity.

• Some classmates will:
  • choose to establish or add to their own endowed funds, specifying how the income will be used by Bowdoin
    
    • a new endowed fund can be seeded with a current gift in honor of your 50th Reunion and plans can be put in place to fully fund it at a later date with additional lifetime gifts and/or through your estate;
  • give to a scholarship fund previously established by your class or make unrestricted endowment gifts  
    
    • student scholarships, faculty positions, research efforts, and academic or student life initiatives can all be supported via endowed funds.

We encourage you to consider what purpose would have special meaning for you.

Ways to fund your gift

• Cash;
• Appreciated securities;
• IRA Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD);
• Employer matching gifts;
• Distributions or grants from donor advised fund, charitable lead trusts, or family foundations;
• Life income gifts
  • Charitable gift annuity (minimum gift $10,000)
  • Charitable remainder trust (minimum gift of $100,000 if Bowdoin serves as trustee) where Bowdoin’s remainder interest is irrevocable;
• Gifts of real estate, tangible personal property, life insurance policies, or other non-liquid assets-for more details go to our Gift Planning website Gift Planning;
• Beneficiary designations for retirement accounts, bank accounts, annuities, and life insurance policies;
• Revocable remainder interests in a charitable or traditional trust, donor advised fund, or family foundation;
• Bequests through a will or living trust.

An endowment gift may be made with a current gift to the College or a future gift (such as the inclusion of Bowdoin in your will) or by a combination of the two. The minimum amount to establish a new endowed fund is $100,000; smaller capital gifts can be made to existing funds or may be unrestricted. A new endowed fund can be seeded with a current gift in honor of your 50th Reunion and plans can be put in place to fully fund it at a later date with additional lifetime gifts and/or through your estate.

With almost a decade of opportunity and many different ways to give, we hope that you will consider your own unique legacy to Bowdoin and create a gift that is significant for you.

Bowdoin depends upon the generosity and spirit of each 50th Reunion class to sustain the College’s commitment to educate future leaders in all walks of life. This is an opportunity to establish a legacy and pay it forward to the next generation of Polar Bears.

Your gift will have an important and far-reaching impact. Everyone in your class will be encouraged to participate in the 50th Reunion Gift. Levels of support vary from person to person, but your class volunteers will ask for a meaningful gift from every classmate.

We hope you’ll consider supporting your class, and Bowdoin, in the following way:

• A multi-year pledge to the Alumni Fund;
• A multi-year pledge to the Endowment;
• Join the Bowdoin Pines Society by including the College in your estate plan or establishing a life income gift.

Class volunteers and Bowdoin staff are available to help you explore creative ways to structure your gift to best meet your family, financial and philanthropic goals.

For current gifts, Bowdoin accepts cash, checks, credit cards and transfers of securities. Credit card gifts may be made by mail, by calling the toll-free gift line (1-888-385-2254), or by making a gift online.

For information on making a gift of securities, please call the Office of 50th Reunion Giving at 207-798-4103.

Bowdoin can also help you establish a current or future gift to support the College. 

Life income gift vehicles including:

• charitable gift annuities;
• pooled income funds; and
• charitable trusts,

all provide both income for you (or your chosen beneficiaries) and a gift to the College.

Unusual assets including:

• personal property;
• business interests or inventory; or
• real estate

can be used to support Bowdoin. A provision in your estate plan such as a bequest or a beneficiary designation can also be a part of your 50th Reunion Gift. 

We will gladly work individually with you to determine the best way to structure a planned gift to achieve your personal financial and tax planning objectives as well as your family and philanthropic goals.

Please contact the Office of 50th Reunion Giving if you would like to learn more about planned gift opportunities.   

• View and print the 50th Reunion Gift and Pledge Form.

Many companies will match employee contributions, in some cases doubling or even tripling your gift. Click here to find out if your company has a matching gift program.

Reunion offers a wide variety of events and programs for alumni and guests of all ages, such as:

• Lectures and panel discussions;
• Performances;
• Family activities;
• Alumni Parade and Convocation;
• Dinners and other events planned especially for the 50th Reunion class.

The fun begins on Thursday afternoon and continues through Sunday morning.

The 50th Reunion is a particularly special milestone, so whether it’s been five years or fifty since you were last on campus, we hope you will join your classmates in Brunswick to celebrate. Visit the Reunion website for the latest details.