MILESTONE EDUCATION ASSOCIATION
Fundraising Impact Report
Academic Year 2021-22
As we approach the end of Academic Year 2021-22, we would like to thank you once again for your contribution to the Milestone Education Association’s Scholarship Fund, and also provide an update on the results of our fundraising activities over the past year, the scholarships awarded for the current academic year, and our plans for the next one.
About our fundraising activities
Since 2013, our students have received more than 150 million HUF in financial support through the Scholarship Fund, primarily funded by the Institute. Ensuring that funding for our scholarship system is sustainable in the long term is an important goal for us, so from Academic Year 2021-22, in addition to changing our organisational format and offering our education services via the Milestone Education Association, we have also started engaging in various fundraising activities.
In 2021, we renewed our cooperation with West London Synagogue, our long-standing partner providing the Lyons Scholarship, and, as a new initiative, we have included a contribution to the scholarship fund in the programme fee of our newly developed Advising Programme.
We organised two fundraising events last year: with the very generous donations made at our October Fundraising Brunch and December Gala Dinner, we raised nearly 9 million HUF in total. This has helped us achieve our goal of funding more than half of the 21,380,000 HUF Scholarship Fund awarded for Academic Year 2021-22 from external donations and institutional partnerships, while providing 10 million HUF from internal sources.
We are particularly pleased that, thanks to a dedicated member of Milestone’s parent community, we have been able to relaunch our further improved Bridge Scholarship Programme, offering full tuition fee support.
When established five years ago, the Bridge Scholarship was made available for Roma students; however, from Academic Year 2021-22, the scholarship programme has been opened up to all talented young people from underprivileged backgrounds. We firmly believe that our Bridge Scholars will become aspirational leaders representing people from all walks of life and thus will be the voices shaping the broader societal conversation.
In the past Academic Year, five newly recruited students were able to participate in the Access Programme with the help of the Bridge Scholarship. As they have all completed their Access studies with exemplary results, they can continue their studies in our Core Programme with full tuition support, joining a current Junior Year student who has been benefitting from the scholarship opportunity for several years.
About the scholarships awarded
We started Academic Year 2021-22 with 382 students, nearly one fifth of whom, 72 students received Needs- and Merit-based Scholarships in the value of 21,380,000 HUF, allocated by the Milestone Scholarship Committee.
Each year, our students can submit applications for a combination of several scholarship types (further information on the opportunities is available on our website); for successful applicants, scholarships are provided in the form of tuition fee discounts.
On behalf of our 72 scholarship recipients, we thank you for your support for Academic Year 2021-22! To provide a glimpse of the opportunities and impact offered by the Milestone Scholarship Fund, we would like to take this opportunity to share with you the following brief testimonials from our scholarship holders:
“Milestone Institute has contributed to my future plans and offered me a wide range of opportunities like attending competitions, participating in various academic programmes and becoming a member of an open-minded community. To me, the scholarship has opened the door to an easier future with a lot of plans.” – Alexandra Sipos, Bridge Scholar, Access Programme 2021-22
“Thanks to Milestone, I have been able to learn about topics such as astronomy and programming, which, although very useful and important, are not (necessarily) taught in traditional high schools. It was through Milestone that I realised that I wanted to study astronomy at university and may even choose this field for my career. Had I not been a Milestone student, it would be much harder to prepare for the university years ahead of me, as I would have missed out on these subjects completely.”
– Kristóf Baumann, Needs-based and Merit-based Scholarship holder, Senior Programme 2021-22
“Having received full tuition fee support for my Milestone studies, I have been able to immerse myself in the academic modules offered by the institute and I could also build up a strong foundation for developing my academic interests further. The structure and methodology of Milestone’s teaching system has also made it a lot easier for me to get used to the higher education system.” – Tina Horváth, Bridge Scholar 2019-2021, currently a student at CEU
“Without the Bridge Scholarship, I would not have been able to study at Milestone. I am very grateful to the institute, because it opened my eyes to many subjects I had not been familiar with before, such as psychology, neuroscience and statistics. The wide range of modules available helped me to find my higher education pathway, which is no other than geography.” – Milán Csóka, Bridge Scholar 2018-2020, currently a student at the University of St Andrews
About our future plans
In realising our vision of Hungary, we believe it is important that the leaders of the future, the students of Milestone, are given a solid foundation and acquire perspective through the intellectual work they do at our institution, and that they represent these values in their future roles in society as well.
For this reason, we think it is crucial that all talented students can continue to participate in our academic programmes, regardless of their financial or social background.
Accordingly, our main objectives for Academic Year 2022-23 in terms of our scholarship programme are the following:
- increase the scholarship budget to 30 million HUF;
- increase the ratio of needs-based scholarships;
- review the assessment system and programme criteria for merit-based scholarships;
- maintain the level of internal funding provided by the association through the redistribution of tuition fees;
- develop a fundraising strategy that incorporates additional funding sources (e.g. corporate donations, sponsorships).
Fundraising is a new area of activity for our institution, and, in addition to bringing in external expertise in order to build up our knowledge in this field, the helpful ideas we have received from our existing supporters and all the feedback from our parent community have been instrumental, for which we are also very grateful.
We very much count on your ongoing support in the future as well: if you know any individuals or companies who share our mission and values and would like to contribute to the association’s Scholarship Fund, or would like to support the development of our fundraising strategy in any other way, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Tünde Szabó
Head of Academic Operations
Milestone Institute
tunde.szabo@msinst.org
+36 70 671 0726