Giving to RIT/NTID
Giving
You can be part of making great things happen, now and in the future.
NTID is the world leader in preparing deaf and hard-of-hearing students for career success, and offers you many opportunities to make a difference in the lives of deaf and hard-of-hearing students from the United States and around the world.
Your gift could help fund a scholarship, help a high school student attend one of NTID's college preparation summer camp programs like Explore Your Future, or provide a student with an opportunity to participate in a study abroad experience. With gifts like these and many others, you can make great things happen.
Make a gift online — it’s convenient, quick and eliminates the need for envelopes, stamps or checks. Your gift starts working for RIT/NTID right away and is considered tax-deductible.
Some popular designations to consider donating to include:
- NTID Alumni Association Endowed Scholarship Fund: Provides important financial aid to deaf and hard-of-hearing students at RIT/NTID who need it most.
- Robert F. Panara Scholarship Fund: Established in 1987, this scholarship honors the life work of NTID's first deaf professor, Dr. Robert F. Panara, and his 20 years of dedication to teaching and to the welfare of NTID students. Awards are made to students with a high degree of financial need.
- The Alumni Museum Project: Your contribution to this project will allow RIT/NTID to pay homage to its 50-year history through the construction of an exhibit area that will highlight important aspects of life at RIT/NTID, as well as the institute's contributions to the lives of deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals around the world. Click the link for more information.
- Alumni Summer Campership: Gifts here provide the resources needed to allow deaf youth to participate in summer camp programs on the RIT/NTID campus that will help them prepare for success in college and beyond.
- Jennifer Van Atta Hayes Memorial Endowed Scholarship: Established in 2014 in memory of Jennifer Van Atta Hayes, a top NTID interpreter who dedicated her career to facilitating communication access for the deaf students she so diligently served. Proceeds from this fund support deaf students participating in study abroad experiences, and interpreting students participating in study aboard mentorship experiences.
- NTID Endowed Scholarship: Established by NTID as a means of accumulating unrestricted earnings to support various institutional needs such as student scholarships.
- NTID Undergraduate Research Fund: NTID’s undergraduate research fund provides students with substantial experiential learning opportunities that cannot be experienced in the traditional classroom and allows them to contribute in innovative ways to cutting-edge fields. Gifts to this fund will be used to purchase materials needed for their projects and to travel to conferences to present their findings.
To see a list of options, click on the Additional Designations link on the Make a gift page and then select your preferred fund or scholarship. You may select more than one option.
Thank you for supporting RIT/NTID students through your scholarship gift. If you are interested in establishing a scholarship, please contact Bryan Hensel, senior director of Development & Special Funding, 585-475-6222.
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Pioneering Foundational Support for Students
Joining NTID in 1979, Dr. Linda Siple BS '79, MS '82 was a difference maker who had a significant impact on students. In 2023 and now retired, her impact continues in a different way. Linda touched the lives of interpreting students for decades at NTID. Now she is giving back to honor her former colleague and mentor, Alice Beardsley.
The Sentinel Society
The RIT Sentinel Society is a community of leadership donors who make a meaningful annual investment in the university. Members of the Sentinel Society champion the creativity and innovation that has become the hallmark of an RIT education. A key area of support is scholarship funds.
Ways to Support NTID
Check
Make your check payable to RIT/NTID
with NTID Endowed Scholarship on the memo line of check
Mail your check to:
Rochester Institute of Technology
University Advancement
P.O. Box 92765
Rochester, NY 14692-8865
Online Gift by Credit Card
Payroll Deduction (for RIT employees only)
Give directly via your paycheck
Stocks, Wills and Trusts
A gift of stocks or property can be a tax-wise gift. Please contact us at (585) 475-6836 for more information.
Choose an Area to Support
Scholarships
Other priorities are to increase gifts to our scholarship funds. With a growing gap between the cost of a college education and grants and government support, endowed scholarships are a priority need. To recruit and retain potential leaders, we must increase scholarship awards based on academic merit and financial need. To give to a broad group of students, choose the NTID Foundation Endowed Scholarship Fund.
If you are interested in establishing a named scholarship fund in honor or memory of someone, please contact Bryan Hensel.
Equipment
Technology is key to attracting and retaining top faculty and students and creating "smart classrooms" to meet the needs of deaf and hard-of-hearing students. Gifts of specific equipment for our training programs give students practice with the latest equipment they will find on the job. Please contact us to learn more.
Academics
To stay competitive, NTID requires a number of endowed chairs to attract talented faculty to integrate the most current research into teaching students.
Research
NTID is in a unique position to further research in deafness, whether it relates to American Sign Language or the learning strategies of deaf students. We welcome your interest in this work. Please contact us to learn more.
Scholarships
Scholarship support is vital to many of the outstanding young men and women who study at NTID. Your gift to scholarship financial aid at NTID will be invaluable in helping forge the next generation of deaf and hard-of-hearing leaders.
Here’s why your gift to scholarships at NTID is especially impactful:
- The average RIT/NTID student graduates with $11,000 in debt. Scholarship support helps reduce this burden.
- One in four RIT/NTID students comes from a family with an annual income of less than $30,000.
- At RIT/NTID, 45% of students receive PELL grants. This means these students come from families with very limited financial means.
- State Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) aid has not kept pace with the rising cost of a college education.
- The number of RIT/NTID students having to take on loans to pay for their education has increased 37% over the past five years.
- AT RIT/NTID, all gifts to endowed scholarships are matched dollar-for-dollar by the federal government. The match will double the impact of your support.
To help the University’s mission to make a RIT/NTID education accessible to those who want to attend, here’s a listing of endowed scholarships that are worthy of your gifts.