Find Giving Areas

Engage Dallas Internship Program

Engage Dallas is a place-based community engagement initiative via SMU's Residential Commons to address community needs focusing on South and West Dallas. The initiative is a long-term, University-wide commitment led by students to partner with local residents, organizations and other leaders to positively impact the community. There is equal emphasis on campus and community impact stemming from the initiative. We are excited to announce the continuation of the Engage Dallas Summer Internship Program for the fifth year. Supporting this project allows donors to contribute to meaningful career exploration opportunities for Mustangs while investing into our South and West Dallas community organizations. This program provides the opportunity for our community partners to apply to host an internship experience and be matched with a qualified SMU student. Engage Dallas provides 100% of the funding for the selected students to ensure they are compensated for their work while not placing a financial burden on the community partner. Your investment would directly benefit an SMU student pursuing an impactful learning experience this summer.

Engineers Without Borders

Engineers Without Borders USA is an international nonprofit humanitarian organization established to support community-driven development programs worldwide. Our chapter's goal is to design and implement sustainable engineering projects for communities in need.

Currently, we are working on an international project to provide a community located in Kenya with a sustainable water supply system. A community of around 1,600 people located in Ndonyo, Kenya, struggles with obtaining clean water, and they need our help with establishing their own water supply system. Not only do we work on our international project, but we have many different local projects. Our most recent local project aims to extract electricity from plant life through plant microbial fuel cells, or P-MFCs, that we eventually hope to implement into campus life at SMU. We also do community outreach by partnering with local community gardens, such as designing a hydroponic garden at 4DWN skate park.

Not only do our projects give communities engineering-based solutions, but they also provide transformative experiences for our EWB members that build strong technical skills and essential leadership skills. To give our members these life-changing experiences, sufficient funding is crucial. We hope to take a small team to Kenya this May to work on our international project, and we need funding for flights, in-country transportation, a translator, testing materials and construction materials. A majority of our financial needs come from the Kenya project, particularly the costs of construction and travel, so the funds raised from SMU Giving Day will be directly applied to the community.

By giving students hands-on experience in engineering and leadership in global and local projects, EWB-SMU truly lives up to SMU's mission statement and ensures that world changers are shaped here.

Faith and Learning Scholars

Faith and Learning Scholars engage in two terms of reading and reflection with a faculty mentor and other Christian students to integrate their faith with their academic and career aspirations. Currently, four cohorts (three first-year and one second-year) meet weekly throughout the academic year to discuss theological texts and to reflect on how they live out the Christian faith in their intellectual and professional pursuits. Contributions provide books and materials for the Faith and Learning Scholars.

- $25 covers one book for a Faith and Learning Scholar.

- $50 covers all books for one student.

- $100 covers student participation in the annual retreat.

- $250 covers one student stipend.

- $1,000 covers facilitator stipend.

Federal Tax Clinic

SMU Dedman School of Law has been operating a federal tax clinic since January 1977. Students in the tax clinic provide representation to taxpayers - generally low-income taxpayers who have income tax disputes with the Internal Revenue Service. In some cases, the tax clinic also represents taxpayers before the United States Tax Court or a United States District Court. Since January 2020, Gregory W. Mitchell '91, '94 has served as the director of the tax clinic.

First Amendment Clinic

The First Amendment Clinic provides assistance to clients defending and advancing the rights of free press, free speech, petition and assembly. Through a mix of litigation and counseling work, the clinic trains student attorneys in practical lawyering and client-focused skills and develops the next generation of lawyers who will exercise leadership in support of First Amendment values.

_ $22 - State court jury fee

_ $25 - Parking at the courthouse

_ $80 - Round trip to the federal courthouse in Sherman

_ $137 - $402 - Filing fees for a state or federal lawsuit

_ $205 -$505 - Filing fees for a state or federal appeal

First-Generation Law Student Association

First-Generation Law Student Association is a student organization that is led by first-gen law students and for first-gen law students. Who is a first-gen law student? A law student who is the first in their immediate family to graduate with a bachelor's degree. FGLSA is focused on creating a community for first-generation law students. This organization will provide networking opportunities among members and alumni, give professional advice and create social activities.

Friends of SMU Libraries

When you contribute to the Friends of SMU Libraries, you become part of a community that fuels discovery, learning and innovation at SMU. Since 1970, the Friends have funded more than $1.5 million in enhancements to library collections, services and spaces, ensuring students and scholars have the resources they need to thrive.
Your support helps fund vital initiatives such as the Student Worker Excellence Awards and the Jalesia Horton Memorial Library School Scholarship, recognizing outstanding student contributions and supporting future library professionals. Through the generosity of Friends like you, the organization has awarded grants to:

  • SMU Libraries Internship Program
  • Voices of SMU Oral History Project
  • Student spaces in Fondren Library
  • Student-led film series at Hamon Arts Library
  • Exhibition and programming at the Hawn Gallery

Graduate Professional Conference Fund

Essential to graduate students' career success is the opportunity, during their studies, to participate in professional conferences, where they share and receive feedback on their research while networking with potential employers. The Graduate Professional Conference Fund provides support for students to register for and travel to professional conferences in their field:

- $75 supports conference registration for one student.

- $200 covers one student's lodging during the conference.

- $700 pays for travel to the conference.

- $1,000 can fund all conference expenses for one student.

Haberman Fund for Graduate Student Support

The Department of Mathematics at SMU offers one of the country's leading programs in computational and applied mathematics. Our program focuses on partial differential equations, dynamical and stochastic systems, machine learning, numerical analysis and scientific computing. Faculty specialize in a wide range of application areas including mathematical biology, neuroscience, fluid mechanics, electromagnetics, geosciences, nonlinear optics and photonics, and sustain active collaborations with leaders in industry and academia. Your support enables us to expand our research and teaching to the next generation of mathematicians. The Haberman Fund for Graduate Student Support will use SMU Giving Day funding to provide our graduate students with enhanced computing resources. In particular, we hope to correct the disparity between faculty computing resources and those that are accessible or attainable for our graduate students. Our SMU Giving Day goal to raise $10K will allow most of our current grad students to use a computationally appropriate laptop during the time they are at SMU. As all our students take courses that require significant computational resources, making them available to our students will make it possible for them to be more successful. Thank you for your consideration of making a gift to the Haberman Fund for Graduate Student Support this year. All gifts will have a direct impact providing essential computational resources to advance graduate student success.

Hilltop Motorsports (Society of Automotive Engineers)

The Society of Automotive Engineers at SMU builds racecars. They participate in the Formula SAE competition, which is organized every year (since 1981) by SAE International. The concept behind Formula SAE is that a fictional manufacturing company has contracted a student design team to develop a small formula-style racecar. The prototype racecar is to be evaluated for its potential as a production item. The target marketing group for the racecar is the nonprofessional weekend autocross racer. Each student team designs, builds and tests a prototype based on a series of rules, and the purpose is both ensuring on-track safety (the cars are driven by the students themselves) and promoting clever problem-solving. The engineering and manufacturing skills students developed in this group are extremely attractive to employers in any industry, naturally including the automotive industry. The experience gained through this organization has led many to secure their dream jobs, which is why we need every bit of financial help we can get! It is important to raise these funds so our organization can continue to design and build better racecars and attract better engineers for each year of competition. With your generous donation, we will be able to pay for the parts we are physically unable to manufacture, along with the raw materials and tools for everything we can make. All donations will earn a vinyl sticker with your organization/name placed on the body panels of our next racecar. We hope you are as excited as we are to continue our premier engineering organization at Lyle!

Hilltop Scholars Program

The Hilltop Scholars Program (HSP) is a first-year honors program for students interested in leadership and community service. HSP offers an opportunity for high-achieving incoming students to excel academically and develop leadership skills during their first year at SMU. This student-led committee hosts exciting events, including the fall 2025 lunch and lecture with Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner, Adam Johnson. Your gifts through SMU Giving Day will support the Student Leadership Committee for the Hilltop Scholars Lecture Series and allow HSP to invite more students to participate in their Leadership Board.

Hispanic Law Student Association

The Hispanic Law Student Association's purpose is to serve as a support organization for Hispanic students, to facilitate awareness of education and professional opportunities to these students, and to promote Hispanic interests and awareness in the larger community through involvement with other campus minority organizations, community service projects and interaction with the Dallas Hispanic legal community. By planning meetings and events that welcome all students at SMU Dedman School of Law, HLSA aims to serve the larger law school community, as well as those who choose to be HLSA members.