Support your College
Over the years gifts from our alumni and friends have made an enormous difference to our community – from unlocking opportunities for those otherwise unable to attain them to encouraging academic and personal growth through our award and bursaries scheme. Your continued support is also helping to ensure that the beautiful Durham Castle, which we are proud to call home, is able to inspire the next generation of students and visitors.
Opportunities Fund
We hope that you enjoyed your time at Castle – whether it was just a few months as part of a DU fellowship or as a student for a year, three years or even longer pursuing your university degree.
Being a member of the College gives staff and students access to opportunities to learn and develop, the tools to make a positive impact on our community, and a chance to gain important skills in a supportive and respectful environment.
We know that for some of our students it can be hard to access these opportunities or to join professional networks. Thus, we have introduced the Castle Opportunities Fund.
The Castle Opportunities Fund plays an important role in supporting students by enabling them to pursue internship possibilities, attend academic conferences, take part in charitable activities, travel for academic pursuits, set up modest businesses or non-profits and more.
By supporting the Fund you help us ensure that our students feel empowered to participate in College life and are able to access the career and academic enrichment opportunities available, both in College and more broadly.
Support the Castle Opportunities Fund
Hardship
We all know that personal, career and/or family circumstances can change. Over the past couple of years we received a number of enquiries from students who reported financial hardship either because of the strains that the pandemic put on their own finances or their families.
We believe that money should not be a barrier to accessing world class education and the co-curricular activities Castle has to offer.
Together we can make sure that our community feels supported and all our students can reach their full potential, irrespective of their financial situation.
How you can give
University College is very fortunate to have its own independent charitable fund, the University College Durham Trust (Registered Charity no. 1151821).
You can support us in many ways, including giving financial gifts of any size or by donating your time.
You can make single and recurring donations to University College Durham Trust via our online donation page.
We trust Enthuse to process our donations for us. They don’t charge us a platform fee, but they will ask you if you would like to enhance your donation to make their work possible. This is totally up to you. In order to help us process donations enthuse charges us 5% of Gift Aid (if you make a £10 donation this is £0.125 and it doesn’t come out of your gift) and the payment provider fee. This covers the processing of gifts and collecting Gift Aid on our behalf.
Because we pay a small fee to process donations, we ask that gifts over £5,000 are made directly to us via our bank. To donate in this way, please email us at [email protected] or telephone us on +44 (0)191 334 4104 and we'll be very happy to help you.
Cheques can be made payable to ‘University College Durham Trust’. Write to us at:
University College Development Office
University College
The Castle
Palace Green
Durham University
DH1 3RW
We kindly request that you include a copy of a completed Gift Aid declaration (PDF) alongside your gift.
Leaving a gift in your Will is a meaningful way to leave a lasting impact on the College, our students and the community. Legacy gifts enable us to maintain sustainable long-term financial planning, ensuring that we are able to look after our precious heritage buildings and support our community for the years to come.
If you are considering leaving a legacy or would like to find out more about our plans for the future, please get in touch.
If you live in the USA or Canada you can give tax efficiently to University College through DunelmUSA: https://www.dunelmusa.org/how-to-give/
You can make a regular gift to the University College Durham Trust through your payroll. Making donations from your gross salary is the most tax-efficient method of making charitable donations. The scheme is available to those working for UK employers.
Example: Payroll gift of £20 per month.
- Donor’s monthly pledge: £20
- Cost to basic rate taxpayer (20%): £16
- Cost to higher rate taxpayer (40%): £12
Your employer must have payroll giving in place in order for you to make a donation in this way. If they do, your payroll administrator can arrange for your gift to reach us.
Other ways of supporting the College:
You can support University College by making a donation through our dedicated Durham University page.
We value your time and expertise just as much as a financial gift, and there are a number of ways that you can support the University. You can visit our volunteer page to find out more about the current opportunities available.
If you have any questions about giving to University College, please contact us and we will be happy to help.