April is Philanthropy Month at Missouri University of Science and Technology. Special events and activities are planned throughout the month to celebrate giving, growth, pride, progress and philanthropic spirit at Missouri S&T.

Philanthropy Month is designed to recognize and thank donors and volunteers to Missouri S&T and to raise awareness of the impact giving make on all students. A few of the planned events are listed below.

Throughout the month, Missouri S&T’s student alumni organization Students Today, Alumni Tomorrow will partner with Blue Key on the 15 for ’15 campaign – a project designed to raise money to directly benefit Missouri S&T students. The goal of the program is to encourage at least 15 percent of the student body to give to Spirit for Change, which provides funding for student support and random acts of kindness for Missouri S&T students throughout the school year. Recent examples include handing out free umbrellas on rainy days and free hot chocolate on cold days, or adding change to expired parking meters.

Gifts can be made throughout the month, but organizers will staff a booth in the Havener Center Monday, April 13, through Friday, April 17. All student gifts to Spirit for Change directly benefit students and gifts of $5 or more will be matched one to one. To make a gift to the 15 for ’15 campaign, visit mineralumni.com/15for15.

On April 3, Missouri S&T will launch its first crowd funding website — crowdfunding.mst.edu — designed to help meet short-term fundraising goals and to encourage innovation on campus. The first crowd funding project is the Mars Rover Design Team, which hopes to raise $15,000 by the end of April to help the team travel to Poland to compete in the European Rover Challenge. The website includes an application for students or student organizations to be featured in a future crowd funding campaign.

Wednesday, April 15, is Thank a Giver (TAG) Day. On TAG Day, students, faculty and staff will raise awareness of the power of philanthropy by placing green tags bearing the message “Made Possible Thanks to Our Generous Donors” on examples of generosity on campus. Tags will be placed on campus landmarks, offices, labs and equipment across campus. TAG Day T-shirts and dog tags will be distributed at Hasselmann Alumni House to all students.

Missouri S&T will announce the 2015 Woman of the Year during an awards luncheon at noon Wednesday, April 15, in Leach Theatre of Castleman Hall. The award includes a $2,000 stipend funded by Missouri S&T graduate Cynthia Tang, founder and former chair of Insight Industries Inc.

On Thursday, April 16, and Friday, April 17, university dignitaries will hand out gift cards as Random Acts of Kindness to students spotted on campus wearing their TAG Day T-shirts or dog tags.

At 4:30 p.m. Thursday, April 16, donors will join members of the campus community in Toomey Hall to dedicate 11 campus labs that were upgraded through nearly $2 million in public funding, grants and charitable contributions. Funded projects include a new turbine gas engine and a nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer and provided enhancements for labs in chemistry, computer science, geology, physics and chemical, electrical, mechanical, aerospace, mining, nuclear and petroleum engineering.

Scholarship students and donors will team up to raise money for student organizations on campus during the third annual Battle of the Brains scholarship banquet and trivia night on Friday, April 17. The event is designed to give donors the opportunity for fellowship with the students who benefit from their generosity, and to allow scholarship recipients to thank our generous donors.