Transform a life. Build the future.
When USM students have the right tools and resources — whether to advance their studies or navigate the unexpected — their talent and determination shine. Your support fuels that momentum, helping capable, driven students become graduates who strengthen Maine’s communities and workforce. Sustaining scholarships goes beyond helping individual students succeed. It’s an investment in the vitality and future of our entire state.
Choose Your Impact
Philanthropic giving plays a crucial role in USM’s ability to support students’ financial needs—and donors can choose to make an impact in ways most meaningful to them.
Create a Named Scholarship
Make a meaningful impact in an area that aligns with your own interests and priorities. By creating a named scholarship, you can help change the trajectory of student lives and careers, strengthen USM’s Annual Fund, and inspire others through your generosity.
Permanently Endow a Scholarship
When you choose to endow a scholarship, you do more than help a student today, you open doors for generations to come. Your generosity becomes a permanent source of strength for the University and a legacy that continues to change lives, year after year.
Support an Existing Scholarship
From talent awards that help attract and retain students, to Last Mile Grants that enable students to complete their degrees, to academic scholarships and more, many existing programs would benefit from your generosity. Explore Donor-Funded Scholarships.
Why scholarship giving matters
When I toured USM, I immediately felt I belonged. My scholarship made it possible for me to attend as an out-of-state student. I’ve found professors who always encourage me to be my best. I plan to stay in Maine and give back the the community that has already given me so much.
It’s difficult for me to put into words the full impact that my USM scholarship has had on my life. When I dropped out of college 30 years ago, I never intended the lapse to be permanent. Then, seven years ago, my life was upended and I began to consider going back to school. There is no question in my mind that, if not for the Osher scholarship for returning students, I never would have been able to enroll at USM and complete my degree. More
Let’s continue the conversation.
Contact Erin Macey, Executive Director of Development:
Phone: 207.780.4408 or Fax: 207-780-4778
Email: erin.macey@maine.edu
Mail: Make your check payable to University of Southern Maine Foundation and addressed to Erin Macey, USM Foundation, P.O. Box 9300, Portland, ME 04101-9300
When planning to make a gift to USM, seek the advice of your financial or legal advisor.