Northern receives large donations

A benefactor of Montana State University-Northern left $570,000 to the Northern Alumni Foundation — one of the largest gifts the foundation has received.

Florence Buckley passed away in 2014 and listed the foundation in her will. She was born in Havre, but was not a student of Northern. She grew up in Havre, and later moved to Fort Peck for work. When she retired, she lived in California for some time, but did not lose her affinity for Havre.

“(The foundation) has received some other gifts in the past, but I think this is one of the largest ones,” said Jim Bennett, director of the Northern Alumni Foundation. “I don’t think it’s the largest one, but it’s pretty darn close.”

Bennett said that many times, the foundation does not have a clue that the money is being left to them until they get a letter in the mail from the executor of the deceased’s will.

One of the perks of donating in Montana is that the state has tax benefits for creating an endowment.

“Basically, money’s paid into the endowment and it’s invested and then over time, basically the profits from the investment pay out as a scholarship,” Bennett said, adding that there is also a leadership program on campus that helps different leadership activities and this was also created by an endowment.

The foundation also recently received $300,000 from Eldora McBride, who graduated from the university in 1943, when it was still Northern Montana College, and $200,000 from a benefactor who chose to remain anonymous.

“We don’t get them very often, so that’s why I think it’s noteworthy that we got these three of them in the last year, and they’re all for a foundation that’s smaller like ours,” Bennett said.

Around $3.2 or $3.3 million is invested into the foundation, he said, and when you add the gifts together, it is another million dollars that the foundation did not have before. He said this will allow the foundation to offer more scholarships and opportunites for students.

McBride’s and the anonymous benefactor’s gifts were stipulated to go toward scholarships for Northern students. One is going to be set up for agricultural students per the benefactor’s request and the other is a leadership scholarship.

Buckley’s was an unrestricted gift to be used for foundation needs.