Opportunities to Give
Rams Club members are a vital to providing the Carolina experience to hundreds of Tar Heels each year. You can support our student-athletes through four priorities – Scholarship, Facilities, Team Operational Support, and the Annual Fund – and through initiatives like FORevHER Tar Heels.
Scholarship Endowment
Scholarship is the foundation of opportunity.
Donors to the Scholarship Endowment Trust provide critical, long-term support for Carolina’s athletic scholarship program. Scholarship donors provide the opportunities for approximately 500 gifted student-athletes annually to gain a world-class education while competing for one of the nation’s top athletics programs.
More importantly, donors equip thousands of our student-athletes to be leaders and champions for a lifetime. For most, especially those who are first-generation college attendees, it is a life-changing experience.
To learn more about how you can provide the opportunity of a lifetime for future Tar Heels, including scholarship giving levels, view the brochure to the right, or contact Beth MacKethan at beth@ramsclub.com or 919.923.2246.
Facility Projects
World-Class Student-Athletes need World-Class facilities.
Rams Club members also play a pivotal role in providing the world-class student-athletes at Carolina with world-class facilities in which to prepare and compete for championships. Carolina Athletics and The Rams Club are underway with important facility projects that directly impact many of Carolina’s 28 sport programs:
Carolina Football Projects
Upgrades and additions enhance Coach Brown’s commitment to recruit student-athletes who will achieve excellence both academically and athletically.
Finley Golf Renovation
The course redesign creates a dedicated practice area and short course for our golf programs.
Chewning Tennis Center
A new complex will bring our tennis facility up to the championship standards of our champion student-athletes.
Women's Basketball Renovations
Renovations to historic Carmichael Arena will create a new practice gym and team areas.
Soccer & Lacrosse Stadium
A new stadium is a valuable addition for four of Carolina’s most accomplished programs Women’s Soccer, Men’s Soccer, Women’s Lacrosse and Men’s Lacrosse.
Karen Shelton Stadium
In addition to a new playing surface and stadium, the program moves into a team building that meets the needs of today's field hockey student-athletes.
Track & Field Complex
A new complex provides our student-athletes with the running surfaces and throwing fields to develop their performance at optimal times for them.
Team Operational Support
Team operational support helps meet unique needs of our programs.
Team operational support encompasses gifts to any of Carolina’s team operating endowments, friends accounts and the Richard A. Baddour Carolina Leadership Academy.
Each sports program at Carolina has its own sports operating endowment. The yield from these endowments is made available to the coach to help meet specific needs not covered in the regular operating budget. While the overall campaign is focused on meeting the needs of all 28 teams, the Sports Operating Endowments allow donors to help individual sports programs to achieve the flexibility and autonomy they need to take advantage of unique opportunities in their sport.
Donors to Sports Operating Endowments provide coaches with the ability to make decisions that can affect their program in the near-term with their legacy gift. For more information on sport endowments, please contact The Rams Club at 919.843.2000.
Team support also includes donations to friends accounts, which provide an immediate increase to coaches’ operating budgets to use at their discretion. Lastly, team support includes gifts to the Richard A. Baddour Carolina Leadership Academy, which develops, challenges and supports student-athletes, coaches and staff in their quest to become world-class leaders in athletics, academics and life.
Note: Gifts to sport endowments do not activate Rams Club benefits as with Annual Fund or Scholarship Endowment Trust gifts. Priority points are accumulated, however, and become active with the activation of a regular Rams Club membership.
The Annual Fund
Every member provides opportunities through The Annual Fund.
Every Carolina fan can be a part of providing athletic and educational opportunities to student-athletes with memberships that start at just $100. As a part of The Rams Club, every member helps Carolina Athletics meet its most pressing needs.
Scholarship costs for Carolina student-athletes continue to present the most pressing challenge for Carolina Athletics. Scholarship costs continue to increase aggressively!
The total cost for athletics scholarships in 2001-02 was $6.3 million. In 2021-22, that cost reached $17.7 million – almost three times as much! The Annual Fund, made up of Rams Club members’ annual gifts, has absorbed much of this significant increase. Carolina has long prided itself on offering a broad-based program that focuses on maximizing opportunities for outstanding young women and men to be a part of the Carolina Family. The challenges in keeping that commitment are significant but can be met with the help of all Carolina fans.
A broad-based annual membership program is imperative to the future of Carolina Athletics. Whether you give $100 or $50,000 annually, we need you to be a part of our effort to ensure our broad-based program and the opportunities it provides to Tar Heel student-athletes.
FORevHER Tar Heels
Championing Carolina's women student-athletes
As we look to chart a course for the next generation of Tar Heel women, you can support them through FORevHER Tar Heels − an initiative to build and inspire a Carolina community that champions and empowers our women student-athletes.
Student-Athlete Support
The rapidly changing landscape of college athletics presents opportunities for Rams Club donors to directly support Tar Heel student-athletes in new and impactful ways. The core mission of The Rams Club remains unchanged – as life-changing scholarships, state-of-the-art facilities, and vital operational support remain key priorities.
In addition, a comprehensive student-athlete experience calls for Carolina to find ways to proactively and directly support our student-athletes through Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) and revenue sharing efforts. The Rams Club is coordinating closely with the North Carolina Hall of Fame (NCHOF) – a non-profit created to establish a Hall of Fame to honor former UNC student-athletes and coaches and to connect local Chapel Hill area charities with student-athletes – to provide these new opportunities.
As part of that effort, donations to NCHOF will now be eligible to receive Rams Club Priority Points. Active Rams Club members making a donation to NCHOF can receive Lifetime Points on their Rams Club account. Donors must maintain their active annual membership with The Rams Club in order to receive the points. Gifts to NCHOF do not satisfy any Rams Club membership gift requirements. Gifts to NCHOF are not processed by The Rams Club but by NCHOF directly.
For more information on NCHOF, please click here.
For more information on Carolina NIL efforts, please click here.