Gift increases distribution to more than $6,000 in scholarships annually
The CFA Society of Kansas City has made an additional $50,000 gift to the UMKC Foundation, adding to an existing endowed scholarship and establishing the largest scholarship available to students studying finance at the Henry W. Bloch School of Management at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
The CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) Society of Kansas City, which includes more than 400 Kansas City-area investment professionals, established the endowed scholarship several years ago. With the addition of the organization’s recent $50,000 gift, which triggered a matching gift from the Marion and Henry Bloch Family Foundation, the scholarship has $135,000 in principle and distributes just over $6,000 in scholarships annually.
Matt Montgomery, a CFA Society board member, said the scholarships are designated for students studying finance with an emphasis in investment management. Funds for the scholarship came from the group’s annual golf tournament.
“As the success of our annual golf fundraising event has grown, we have made an effort to use the excess funds generated to provide scholarships to our local universities,” Montgomery said. “Our goal, with the help of the universities, has been to identify bright, young, local candidates who have already decided to pursue a career in investment management.”
Though the CFA society has established other scholarships, its UMKC scholarship is its only endowed scholarship. Montgomery said the ideal candidates for the scholarship are students who have already taken coursework in finance and investment management, plan to continue that focus at the graduate level, and eventually pursue a career in investment management.
Fred Hays, who chairs the Bloch School’s finance department, said the financial analyst track of the school’s master’s degree in finance closely parallels the areas covered on the CFA exams.
“The significant increase in the CFA scholarship endowment permits us to attract the best and brightest students to the Bloch MSF program,” Hays said.
He said the quality of students already in the program was demonstrated recently when a Bloch team won the Americas competition in the CFA Research Challenge. The team competed against top schools in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and South and Central America.
“The scholarships will encourage even more students to pursue a career in areas related to financial analysis,” Hays said. “The CFA scholarships also make a strong statement that the finance profession views these funds as an investment in future financial leaders.”
The UMKC Foundation, launched in 2008, is an independent, nonprofit organization that serves as the official fundraising and fund management organization for UMKC.