Immediate Needs and Emerging Opportunities Fund

Through the combined efforts of our faculty, staff, students, and alumni, we will continue to develop the principled innovative leaders the world needs in times of crisis, as well as creating the innovative ideas and management practices that can aid those leaders in addressing the challenges posed by this global pandemic.

The Immediate Needs and Emerging Opportunities Fund provides essential aid for students facing pandemic-related travel issues, housing challenges, and financial hardships. It allows staff to innovate digital platforms and redesign physical classroom space to support new kinds of learning. And it funds faculty as they conduct new research that addresses the most pressing, time-sensitive challenges facing the world—including COVID-19. 

As you continue to deal with the impact of the COVID-19 crisis in your own life, we hope that you will consider a gift to the Immediate Needs and Emerging Opportunities Fund to help support the extraordinary efforts across MIT Sloan to achieve our mission. 

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Support Our Students

MIT Sloan students have shown tremendous resiliency and tenacity in response to the COVID-19 crisis. During this challenging period, they have adjusted to a new learning environment and, in many cases, new living situations. The Immediate Needs and Emerging Opportunities Fund benefits our students in a number of critical ways.

Innovating in a Changing Environment 

At the beginning of the pandemic, gifts to the Immediate Needs and Emerging Opportunities Fund were instrumental in migrating the entire MIT Sloan student experience to virtual. As an example of how technological needs greatly increased, the MIT Sloan community spent a collective 1.3 million minutes per day on the Zoom video-sharing platform during the first week of online classes—as opposed to 35,000 minutes per day prior to the COVID-19 outbreak. The school again relied on the support of the Immediate Needs and Emerging Opportunities Fund this past fall as we implemented new technology, logistics across campus, and redesigned spaces to allow a portion of enrolled students to safely return to campus for in-person learning, while maintaining virtual learning for others.  

As we enter into a new academic year, the Immediate Needs and Emerging Opportunities Fund will allow for ongoing innovation on campus, in classrooms, and online to ensure that the MIT Sloan experience continues to adapt in response to challenges and opportunities brought on by the pandemic and other world events, all while continuing to develop our students into principled, innovative leaders. 

Facilitating Essential Career Development Resources

The Office of External Relations and MIT Sloan’s Career Development Office are working to facilitate essential connections between students and alumni, as well as assist current students to complete unpaid, degree-related summer professional experiences when they have no other source of funding. In addition to supporting the Immediate Needs and Emerging Opportunities Fund, Sloanies can help by posting open job and internship opportunities, volunteering to coach a student interested in their industry, hosting a virtual coffee chat, or serving as an ambassador for MIT Sloan candidates

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Faculty Research

Dozens of MIT Sloan faculty—who were already hard at work solving the world's greatest challenges—pivoted their research to study the effects of the COVID-19 crisis and address the rising economic, financial, and health care needs. If there was ever a time that demonstrated the world’s high regard for our faculty’s expertise, the time is now. 

Gifts to the Immediate Needs and Emerging Opportunities Fund will enable our faculty and the many centers, initiatives, and efforts they lead to respond fully to the issues at hand.