It is thanks to our alumni’s commitment to supporting the School of Management and their passion for driving Cranfield forward that, despite a challenging year, we have been able to continue our work to:
Support our students with scholarships to ensure Cranfield can compete with peer institutions and continue attracting and harnessing the best and the brightest minds.
Through a most challenging time in living memory, we’ve increased our funding focus on scholarships and bursaries, with 50% of the donations to the Annual Fund channelled towards student support to ensure no bright mind with the talent and aspiration to pursue a degree at Cranfield is held back by financial circumstances.
The life-changing impact of student support is perhaps best summed up in the words of Maria Salamoun (MBA 2021), the Relithan Scholar: “First and foremost, without receiving support, the possibility of attending the Full-time MBA at Cranfield would have remained to this day a milestone to be achieved. This is an opportunity I will never forget as it empowered me to learn and access powerful skills in my career. I aspire to become someone who will make you and Cranfield that has entrusted me with this scholarship proud and give back to each and every youthful candidate that have the passion and persistence to follow their dream of pursuing an MBA but lack the privilege of having the whole funding.”
Develop the digital infrastructure and resources, which have proven vital during the pandemic, to recreate the unique Cranfield experience online and provide best-in-class digital learning.
25% of the Annual Fund donations in the last academic year were directed towards the infrastructural resources required by the School’s digital strategy led by Graham Bell (Exec MBA 2018) which prepared and enabled all Masters and executive education programmes to continue seamlessly during the pandemic. Digital innovation remains a key priority well into the future to enable the School to expand its excellence and impact by delivering education and development programmes far wider than the boundaries of our physical campus.
Establish Cranfield as a powerhouse for entrepreneurs offering a range of grants, funds and entrepreneurial resources and expertise to help early-stage businesses set up by students, alumni and friends of the University.
Cranfield has a reputation as a centre of entrepreneurial excellence – especially for the insights, training and support given to start-ups and early-stage businesses by the School of Management’s Bettany Centre for Entrepreneurship. 25% of the Annual Fund donations have been directed to support this work by enabling the School’s ‘Ready for Scale’ programme, working with small local businesses to help develop growth plans and navigate challenging times, enabling them to have a positive impact on the local economy, which has proven more vital than ever in the last 18 months. The donations have also supported initiatives such as start-up weekends, peer-to-peer network and BGP online webinar series Owning the Winter, which provided a vital lifeline to local businesses navigating successive lockdowns.
If you’ve supported Cranfield through a gift to the Annual Fund last year, we’d like to thank you. If you’d like to find out more about our re-envisioned Annual Fund, Tomorrow. Brighter., and discover more about the priorities outlined above visit our .
