The Morehead-Cain Foundation received its largest ever single donation from an alumnus in September. The $10 million gift from an anonymous donor will help the foundation keep providing scholarships to more UNC students for years to come.

The gift did not come with any conditions or requests to alter the scholarship program in any way, officials said. Morehead-Cain representatives say it reflects the donor’s confidence in the program’s impact on the UNC community and those who were scholarship recipients.

Chuck Lovelace, the executive director of the Morehead-Cain Foundation, says while the foundation had been in discussion with the donor for about a year, the emotions he felt when the gift became official are hard to explain.

“When it finally came through,” he says, “it’s just one of those moments where you’re overwhelmed by the generosity of the donor. How meaningful and impactful the gift is going to be for the program; it’s just hard to comprehend.”

The $10 million gift brings the foundation $10 million away from its fundraising goal during the university’s Campaign for Carolina. The scholarship program is aiming to reach $75 million donated by the fundraiser’s completion. Lovelace says that amount will sustain scholarships to 75 UNC students per class, a new benchmark just reached by the foundation, for many years.

“That will bring 300 scholars on campus at any one time over the four classes,” says Lovelace. “That will be the largest we’ve ever been in the program’s history, which goes back to 1951.”

With their gift, the donor started the Give Together Scholarship Challenge. Lovelace says its purpose to inspire other Morehead-Cain and UNC alumni to also donate to the foundation and help reach that fundraising goal.

“The donor was interested in not only helping us get to the end of our goal,”  he says, “but also encouraging alumni who might not have come to the table to join the campaign, get involved and expand people’s horizons on what they might be able to do for the program.”

The Give Together Scholarship Challenge will run through the end of the Campaign for Carolina on December 31, 2022.

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