At a time when obtaining scholarships is difficult and necessary funds for a higher education are increasingly uncertain, the Husky Pride Fund couldn’t have reached its milestone sooner.

By raising more than $50,000 through donations, selling T-shirts and providing jars around campus for change collection, the fund reached its benchmark to begin giving out scholarships to students. Since its conception in the 2006–07 school year, the fund has been focused on raising enough revenue to support students with financial barriers to achieving a college education.

Kyle Fuller, chair of the Husky Pride Fund and director of programming for ASUW, said the fund recently reached the milestone. Fuller became aware of the fund’s ability to give out scholarships when she met with Rene Singleton, assistant director of student activities and adviser to the Husky Pride Fund. After looking over the numbers, they saw that, after two years of collecting donations and raising money, the fund was ready for scholarship development.

Up until this point, the fund has been working on creating partnerships and getting people as involved as possible. Fuller said she has been working with the United Greek Council, which recently donated $200 to the fund, and UW Athletics. She has also been working on a commercial to air on UWTV.

“I knew eventually that it was going to become a good source of scholarship for those who really need it and those in emergency situations,” said Mike Snowden, founder and vice chair of the Husky Pride Fund. “I knew it would take time, but I really wanted to create a sustainable infrastructure that students need.”

Fuller said that the fund hasn’t been able to do anything with the money so far, but through publicity and getting the word out, donations have increased, and people are becoming more involved.

The fund started out strongly with high involvement and donation rates. In its second year, however, it reached a lull and stopped seeing strong growth. With the introduction of the Husky T-shirts and help from a marketing class on campus, sales quickly gained speed, and money began flowing through the fund again. Snowden said that donations in change bins drew in a couple thousand dollars every month or two, but exact numbers are not available.

Tim Mensing, president of ASUW, said in an e-mail that the fund began the year with $22,000 and has now surpassed $52,000. The fund reached the benchmark more quickly than some leaders anticipated.

“At the beginning of the year, I was told that we had $23,000 in the fund, but that was an estimate,” Fuller said. “I was thinking [it would be] probably between two and three years before we would reach that benchmark.”

Fuller is meeting with the UW Foundation and the UW Alumni Association this week to get a sense of how scholarships are modeled and an idea about their framework. She will then set up a more concrete structure for the Husky Pride Fund, adding that she wants everything solidified by the end of this quarter.

“We considered the scholarship allocation at the beginning of the fund’s development as an unnecessary stress and wanted to hit the mark first,” Snowden said. “The next step is deriving qualifications and what determines an emergency situation.”

Fuller said that before any scholarship guidelines are established, she wants to cover all of the bases and connect with professionals to develop a model for the program.

“My main goal in creating the fund was to set up the internal structure and then have it continue to grow,” Snowden said.

The Husky Pride Fund will also become the only scholarship source on campus over which the administration does not have control. Currently, 56 percent of financial-aid distribution comes in the form of scholarships and grants. Fuller said that having a source of funding outside the administration could come as a relief to many students who expect to have their funding cut.

“Just because we hit the mark doesn’t mean we’re stopping. It’s going to drive us more since it breathes new life into everyone working on the fund,” Fuller said. “If anything, reaching our goal makes us work harder because we hit that point.”

Reach contributing writer Katie Burke at news@dailyuw.com.