When we think about “giving” or “donating” to Mizzou, it’s likely that our first thoughts center around money. While gifts of treasure are vital to upholding our University’s high standards as an institution (especially in a reality of shrinking state budgets), there are other ways that our alumni can give to MU to keep Mizzou strong:
Mentor a student
A great lifelong benefit of attending the University of Missouri is admittance into a very powerful network – a network of Tigers that includes more than 300,000 living alumni around the globe. Not only can alumni leverage these bonds to grow their own careers and communities, but we can also use these ties to add value to the Mizzou education of current students.
MAA offers two opportunities for alumni to mentor students: The Griffiths Leadership Society for Women, which hosts biannual conferences to bring together students and alumnae, and the True Tiger Network Mentorship Program, which creates one-on-one pairings between alumni and students with similar backgrounds or career interests.
Engage with your local MAA chapter… Or start one in your area.
Not only is it just fun to connect with other Tigers in your area, but the proceeds of our regional chapters help provide hundreds of thousands of dollars each year in local scholarships to Mizzou students through our Alumni Scholars Program.
Watch parties, student send-offs, networking mixers, 5Ks—you name it, one of our 121 regional chapters (throughout the U.S. and the world) has probably hosted it!
Become a MizzouNet Social Media Ambassador
Live far away from COMO? Short on free time? No problem. Serving as a MizzouNet Social Media Ambassador allows you to do your part to give back to Mizzou, wherever you are. A couple clicks each month has the potential to reach thousands of new eyes with important Mizzou messages.
Twice a month, ambassadors get ready-to-share MU content sent straight to their email inbox with the option to post directly to their own social media profiles.
Read our past blog post to learn more about becoming a MizzouNet Social Media Ambassador –or just go ahead and sign up.
Host students traveling to your area through Mizzou Alternative Breaks.
During spring, summer, Thanksgiving and winter breaks, Mizzou Alternative Breaks (the second-largest program of its kind in the nation) sends more than 800 students on 65 trips to do service work domestically and internationally. To help students minimize costs during these trips, alumni living in the service destination often open up their homes to students or simply invite them over for a meal. Alumni support can make all the difference in the success of these trips and the impact of their service.
Help recruit future students.
One of the most overlooked, but important ways alumni support the future of the University is in helping bring new students to Mizzou. Each time you talk about your Mizzou experience, wear Mizzou gear or even mention that you attended to the University of Missouri, you’re serving as an ambassador for MU. And whether this impact reaches your children, younger siblings, grandchildren, nieces or nephews, you’re advertising to all the potential students in your life how wonderful it is to be a Missouri Tiger.
For more proactive ways to help great students become Tigers, check out our previous blog post for Three Ways Alumni Can Aid in Student Recruitment.
Whether through time, talent or treasure (or all three), I feel that all of us, as alumni, are called to continue giving back to MU in exchange for all the ways being Mizzou made enriches our lives. Here at MAA, that’s what our mission of Making Mizzou Stronger is all about.