Rider introduces Presidential Hope Fund campaign

By Caroline Haviland

With the intention of offering Rider students supplementary financial assistance, the university announced the creation of the Presidential Hope Fund in an Oct. 29 universitywide email, a new initiative established by Rider President John Loyack aimed toward students experiencing “unforeseen financial or family hardship.”

“The immediate need for the university is to make sure that students have resources they need to be able to finish their experience and stay with us and be part of the community until they do,” Loyack said in an interview with The Rider News on Nov. 4. 

Initially introduced to university leadership and trustees a week before its universitywide announcement with a three-year goal of $1 million, the fund surpassed that target in less than a week, according to the email, with Loyack personally pledging $150,000 over the next three years.

“I wouldn’t ask somebody else to be committed to something that I wasn’t committed to. Maybe that’s part of the early success of the campaign,” Loyack said, regarding the reasoning for his large contribution. 

The fund currently sits at a little over $1.2 million, Loyack said in his interview with The Rider News, surpassing his expectations and sending a strong message about the Rider community. The new president attributes the surge of donations in a week’s time to the core purpose behind the campaign; financially supporting students to continue their education. 

In a Nov. 4 email to The Rider News, Board of Trustees Chair Joe McDougall said, “President Loyack set the tone by being donor number one to Rider’s Presidential Hope Fund. This quickly inspired me and several other trustees to join him to ensure a launch that will allow the fund to immediately assist students. We are fortunate to have so many dedicated and generous trustees who support Rider at every turn. I’m hopeful this will encourage others to give to a cause that is solely focused on supporting our students when they are most in need.”

While the call to give funds has only been extended to certain members of the Rider community, Loyack plans for the Presidential Hope Fund to continue to grow once outreach begins to the university’s donor base, alumni and people connected with Rider on a consistent basis. 

In addition to its benefit to the student experience, the email said the new plan intends to increase retention and degree completion, which comes as Rider’s retention rate continually declines. According to an Oct. 17 email from Provost Kelly Bidle to all deans and department chairs, the rate of returning Rider freshman for the current school year is 75%, down from 79% in 2024. 

However, data from years prior to 2024 show a pattern of Rider struggling to retain students and get them to graduation, Loyack said, and the top reason is finances. By taking an idea he implemented at both of his prior universities, Loyack said he intends for the Presidential Hope Fund to benefit retention by showing students that, “we’re here to help each other get through tough times, and to get where we all want to go.” 

At his past universities, Kings College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and Alvernia University in Reading, Pennsylvania, Loyack said he realized once these initiatives were implemented, he became more aware of how he could provide students with additional support since the students in turn felt comfortable to “start the conversation.”

“Once you get communication going, you get a powerful thing,” Loyack said. 

Funding will be available starting in spring 2026, and the university is currently working on the procedure for students to seek this additional support. Loyack said the process will be as effortless as “making a request and sending an email to the right place” without filling out an excessive amount of forms. 

“It could be that you need a new set of tires, and if you can’t get them, you can’t drive to campus, so we’ll help you do that,” Loyack said. “Maybe you need a little bit of extra aid or a bus pass or you need books, whatever it is … You’re here to have a good experience and graduate and it’s our job to find the resources to do that.”

Toward the end of 2025, the university will have an idea of how many students this fund will benefit. With about 4,000 students in attendance, Loyack said even $1.2 million is a fair amount of resources available.

In addition to students in need of financial assistance, the Oct. 29 universitywide email explained the fund will support graduating seniors close to their degree’s completion, enhance scholarships for students in all programs and levels and grow the resources for academic necessities. 

“Everybody has a component of their education, for the most part, unless you’re on scholarship, where you have to find a way to fund it and sometimes parents’ situations change and students’ situations change,” Loyack said in his interview with The Rider News. “The hope would be to be able to use the fund for that, to keep them going toward graduation.”

This new campaign shifts gears from former Rider President Gregory Dell’Omo’s fundraising initiative, Transforming Students, Transforming Lives, which concluded with $98.7 million upon his retirement in July. Its purpose was to increase Rider’s endowment, fund student scholarships and finance campus upgrades. 

Loyack said he relates to students’ financial struggles on a personal level from his experience funding his own college education. While the university will continue to fundraise for other campus necessities, Loyack said he wanted to make his first initiative revolve around the core of the Rider community: the students. 

He said, “From the heart, as a first-generation college student, who paid their way through college, I get how hard it is to do that and so many of our students are in that position. We have to have some resources to help.”