• You have the opportunity to participate in the Grinnell experience every year.
• Make a gift that is meaningful to you and appropriate to your circumstances.
• The College appreciates your generosity and will keep you informed of our efforts because you are integral to the well-being of the College.

Pioneer Fund Gifts

The majority of Pioneer Fund gifts are unrestricted operating funds to enhance the operating budget. Funds are expended following the budget process's recommendations for priorities for a given year.

Unrestricted funds support educational programs: classes, laboratories, performances, speakers, internships, wellness programs, athletics, and arts initiatives.

The budget is prepared each fall and put into place the following July. In the intervening months, opportunities arise that, if Grinnell had to wait for the next budget cycle, could take up to two years to be implemented.

Unrestricted giving to the Pioneer Fund allows Grinnell to take advantage of these opportunities and to be responsive in its decision-making.

Pioneer Fund staff are thoughtful about what we do and how we do it. We invest a lot of care in our communications with donors by maintaining a cost-effective and environmentally friendly communication plan.

When planning our communications, we pay close attention to printing and mailing costs. We have been able to dramatically reduce the mailing cost per piece over the last several years. We are frugal stewards of our budget while sharing messages at the most reasonable investment per donor possible.

Our communications utilize more electronic media because this approach is more mindful of the stress of paper products on our environment. It also offers a different venue to communicate with those who prefer e-mail. We try to be respectful and honor the College's general stance that electronic communications be appropriate and infrequent.

We use the most environmentally friendly paper possible for our printing balanced with our practical needs. All inks we use are soy-based. We often incur incremental costs to use papers with higher post-consumer waste contents.

While we use a variety of papers to produce the cards and letters we send to you, our main, official stationery is printed on a Paper Mill's Strathmore paper, as is the rest of the College's official stationery.

The Paper Mill Store uses 100% wind power for their electrical needs as of September 2006. This paper is also carbon-neutral. They reduce 341,445 pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by using wind power. Strathmore paper is of 96% brightness and is acid-free and process-chlorine free. It is made with 100% post-consumer waste paper fiber. This paper has been certified by Green Seal and the Forest Stewardship Council.