Your gift provides unlimited possibilities.

Your gift provides unlimited possibilities.

Gifts from Sentinel Society members provide the critical resources necessary for RIT to meet our most pressing and immediate needs. Together, these annual gifts, from more than 580 members, provide direct budget relief that allows the university to be nimble as we fulfill emergent student scholarship needs, unanticipated academic and student life opportunities, make life-changing international experiences accessible, offer powerful career building and research programs, and react to numerous unforeseen challenges our students face.

Becoming a Sentinel donor means that you will make a direct, immediate, and substantial impact on our students. Here are some examples of how Sentinel gifts have made a difference in the lives of RIT students.

• The Grace Hopper Conference (GHC) is the world’s largest gathering of women technologists. More than 25,000 attendees have the opportunity to speak, volunteer, learn, network, celebrate, and build their personal brands. The GHC creates a supportive and inclusive environment for women in technology and provides a platform for networking, professional development, and the exchange of ideas—a robust and potentially life-altering experience for student attendees.
  
  Sentinel gifts help cover the cost of registration fees, travel expenses, and accommodations making attendance at such a life-altering event opportunity possible for our women student technologists at RIT.
  
  

• RIT’s Launch Initiative is a multidisciplinary student organization designing, manufacturing, and launching high-powered rockets for learning and competition. The group aims to prepare students for excellence in aerospace, to conduct novel research and development, and to put RIT at the forefront of collegiate rocketry and competition. In July 2023, RIT’s Launch Initiative won first place in the Space Dynamics Laboratory Payload Challenge, part of the Intercollegiate Rocket and Engineering Competition. They were among nearly 6,000 students from 159 international collegiate teams at the annual competition.
  
  Participation on the team provides real-world engineering as well as non-technical experience for future careers. Sentinel gifts provided the fuel to fund team member travel expenses to this international event.
   

• An international graduate student found themselves unexpectedly facing severe financial hardship due to a series of unfortunate events that made it no longer possible for the family to support the student’s education. Not eligible for loans and unable to register for classes, the student would have had to leave RIT unable to fulfill the remaining requirements to graduate. Because of the unrestricted and discretionary nature of Sentinel funds, the dean’s office, working with campus partners, had the ability to provide that much needed aid to the student who was able to register for classes and continue on the path to graduation. He was able to register for his remaining classes and successfully defend his master’s thesis.
  
  As with this student, the promise of a scholarship can literally change someone’s life. Gifts from Sentinel members truly have the ability to transform aspirations into achievements, enabling students to benefit from the life-changing experience of an RIT education. Make an investment in the future. Become a Sentinel Society member.

Join the community of philanthropists to invest in the future of RIT and make a difference today.
 

Membership Levels

By becoming a Sentinel donor, you will make a direct, immediate and substantial impact on our students. Recognition in RIT’s premier annual giving society is granted to those who make a five year pledge to a Sentinel Society eligible fund, in an area of the university they feel most passionate about. Members are recognized in our online honor roll at the following annual gift levels:

For additional information on how to become a Sentinel Society member, please contact us. Our team is available to provide further clarification and assistance, and can be reached by phone at 585-475-5500 or toll-free at 1-800-477-0376, or by email at sentinelsociety@rit.edu. We welcome the opportunity to answer any questions you may have and assist you in making a meaningful impact through your giving to RIT.

Pledge Online

Sentinel member gifts turn student aspirations into achievement.