Thanking Our Donors

Our Foundation Scholarships are created and funded by generous donors who want to help our hard-working and talented students succeed. Many of our Foundation Scholarship donors were once Radford students or are current/retired faculty of Radford University. Other donors are community members we consider great friends!

Foundation Scholarships are not just another funding source, they are true gifts, and each gift needs to be acknowledged in a sincere, meaningful way.

To help ensure that our donors feel appreciated and have a good donor experience, all scholarship recipients are required to submit a thank you letter to the Financial Aid Office.

The Financial Aid Office will check each letter to make sure it is appropriately written based on instructions provided to the student in the award notification. Those instructions will include the following information:

1)      Tips on how to write a good thank you letter

2)      A general content guide for each section of the letter

3)      Information on the scholarship contact (the donor, donor’s heir or designee)

4)      Deadline for submission

Once checked and approved, each letter will be sent to Radford’s Office of Advancement which will pair students’ letters with a cover letter from the VP of Advancement to send to the donor, or donor’s heir or appropriate university designee.

Other Ways Students May Thank and Celebrate Their Donors

In addition to sending a required thank you letter to their donors, scholarship recipients may also send the Financial Aid Office a photo to include with the thank you letter and/or a thank you video message.  Both are optional. Students may submit their videos to Cherie Durbin, Foundation Scholarships Coordinator cdurbin2@radford.edu . Each will be reviewed for style and content before sending to the donor(s).

Students give the university expressed permission to use their thank you letters, photos and/or video messages for thanking donors, marketing/promoting the Foundation Scholarship Program and to use publically.

Thank you video messages may be shown at the Partners in Excellence Luncheon. If used, students may receive a prize for 1) most creative 2) the most heartfelt 3) the funniest 4) the best overall.