May 18, 2024 | Lee Newspapers Montana
This month marks the celebration of college graduations around the country, celebrations of long hours spent studying, planning and sacrificing to make it to the graduation podium.
For one group of graduates, the celebration is particularly sweet. For nontraditional students, the path has been harder fought. While they persevered in achieving long-sought dreams, most nontraditional students also worked and cared for their families. Through education, they laid the inspirational path for their children, transforming their lives and the generations to follow.
The Jeannette Rankin Foundation is dedicated to supporting nontraditional women students who are doing everything they can to reach college graduation and improve the lives of their families and communities. The Rankin Foundation was founded in 1976 with a bequest from Jeannette Rankin’s Georgia estate to support “mature, unemployed women workers.” With that directive from the late Montana Congresswoman and the Great Force of her generation, a group of friends and admirers of Rankin set out to establish an organization lifting nontraditional women students pursuing their first associate or bachelor’s degree.
Today, the Rankin Foundation has awarded 1,700 Scholar Grants to women/non-binary students who demonstrate financial need in all 50 states, including Montana. In our state, Scholar Grants are available to eligible students 25 years of age and older.
The foundation is unique among scholarship-granting organizations. Their unrestricted Scholar Grants are awarded directly to students who can use the funding in any way that helps them reach graduation, including covering childcare, rent, groceries, gas, etc.
Additionally, the organization’s support services offer Rankin Scholars coaching, community-building and emergency funding. Scholars are embraced by the Rankin community and supported as they navigate the immense challenges of going to school, raising a family and living at or below the poverty line. And when they graduate, a new world of opportunities emerges as they enter the professional workforce, buy homes and step away from public assistance.
In 2023, a gift from an anonymous donor enabled the foundation to fulfill one of Rankin’s last requests. Before her passing, Congresswoman Rankin shared with her friend and personal assistant Reita Rivers that she wished she had done more to advocate for Native Americans.
Honoring Rankin’s request, the foundation established the Montana Tribal College Scholar Grant program as a pilot program to support nontraditional women students attending all seven of Montana’s tribal colleges. In its inaugural year, this program awarded Scholar Grants to 51 students, and the successful model has now been deployed to all U.S. tribal colleges.
The same anonymous donor has stepped forward once more, with a historic opportunity for all of us to join them in an unprecedented Great Force effort to expand Rankin Scholar support services. Through the end of May, every gift received by the Rankin Foundation will be matched dollar for dollar up to $100,000.
The support services are the key to Rankin Scholars’ 96% Persistence Rate, the annual percentage of Scholars who graduate or continue with their studies. They support Scholars like Robyn Iron, who became a Rankin Scholar as a student at Salish Kootenai College and is now pursuing her bachelor’s degree at the University of Montana. The Rankin Foundation has been by Iron’s side throughout her educational journey as a single mom raising two girls. As she completes her degree, Iron’s world is already expanding as KPAX News’ newest reporter covering Indigenous stories statewide.
We invite you to join us in the Great Force! Please consider a gift to the Rankin Foundation by May 31, and double your giving power to transform the future of students and families. You can learn more and give today at rankinfoundation.org.
The Rankin Foundation’s Montana Great Force Committee: Betsy Bach, Ph.D.; Beth Cogswell; Tracy Cosgrove; Tim Gordon; Demetra Lambros, J.D.; Kate Shanley, Ph.D.; Chris Warden; Lori Warden