Advancement Highlights
The Columbus State Community College Advancement team aligns fundraising with institutional priorities, leveraging individual, foundation, and corporate giving to support the college’s students and advance its mission. Extraordinary philanthropic support is described throughout this report; selected additional examples follow below.
Bolstering Student Success
Noteworthy examples of philanthropic and grant support intended to help students pay for college and meet essential needs include the following.
Scholarship support
- Approximately 700 students received nearly $900,000 in philanthropic scholarship support over the last two academic years.
- Donors established 22 new philanthropic scholarships at the Columbus State Foundation.
- More than 20 philanthropic private-sector partners joined the City of Columbus and Columbus State to make the Columbus Promise possible. In the program’s first two years, more than 1,400 Columbus City Schools graduates have enrolled at the college, tuition-free.
Funding for basic needs
- In celebration of the company’s 75th anniversary, the Crane Group created the college’s first endowed student emergency support fund, which provides just-in-time assistance with nonacademic needs, such as transportation, child care, food, and housing.
- The U.S. Department of Education awarded Columbus State nearly $1 million to support student food and transportation access. The grant also funds new case management and social worker positions to connect students with other supportive services within and outside of the college.
- Donors also established several new funds to focus on specific needs, such as food insecurity and child care
Giving to Columbus State
Are you ready to make a difference in students' lives? We offer a variety of convenient ways to give, whether you want to make a small contribution or designate your own scholarship. You can also donate to help students overcome financial barriers like hunger or housing.
Strengthening Pathways to Economic Mobility
Support in this category helps students and families realize economic mobility and
fills the talent pipelines critical to regional economic success. In addition to engineering
technology, health care, and IT support described in the Workforce Development section
of this report, noteworthy examples include the following.
- Bloomberg Philanthropies has provided substantial support for the creation of a regional talent ecosystem, with particular emphasis on key emerging industries such as engineering technologies, information technology, health care, and bioscience.
- Grange Insurance’s generous gift to the Columbus State Foundation, the largest unrestricted
gift in the
Foundation’s history, supports the development of earn-and-learn employer partnerships for Columbus Promise and other students. - Gifts from multiple donors, including Cameron Mitchell Restaurants, Michael’s Finer Meats and Seafoods, The Wasserstrom Co, and William K. Emery, helped to bring the campaign for Mitchell Hall, home to the college’s Hospitality Management and Culinary Arts programs, to a successful conclusion.
- The Ingram-White Castle Foundation’s “Giving Renews Our World” (GROW) grant will be
used to financially bolster lower-paying and unpaid student internships, develop a
new micro-internship program for short-term paid career exploration experiences, and
build a dedicated college
internship staff team.
Taste the Future
Taste the Future—an annual celebration of the college’s renowned culinary legacy featuring more than 40 local food-and-beverage partners—is Columbus State’s signature fundraising event, with proceeds benefiting student emergency needs funds and providing scholarships for tuition, books, and supplies. Taste ’22 raised $277,000, an event record that stood until August of ’23, when the bar was raised to $286,000.
Join the Party! Get tickets for next year's Taste the Future