Annual Giving Donor Recognition Societies

The Institute values every gift received, as well as continuity of giving. Caltech annual giving societies acknowledge the significance of our donors and their contributions of unrestricted funds. In Annual Giving, we recognize those who make gifts up to $2,999 in unrestricted funds in a calendar year. For alumni and friends who would like to support the Institute at a higher threshold, please consider membership in The Associates, Caltech's premiere support organization.

• Throop Society $1,250 - 2,999
• Hale Society $ 600 - 1,249
• Noyes Society $ 300 - 599
• Millikan Society $ 150 - 299
• Donor Society $ 1 - 149

  

  Caltech's donor recognition societies are named for the Institute's founders and leaders. In November 1891, Pasadena philanthropist Amos Throop established Throop University, the forerunner of Caltech, with 31 students and a six-member faculty. Throop might have remained just a good local school had it not been for the arrival in Pasadena of astronomer George Ellery Hale.

  The first director of the Mount Wilson Observatory, Hale became a member of Throop's board of trustees in 1907, and envisioned molding it into a first-class institution for engineering and scientific research and education. Under Hale's leadership, Throop's transformation began.

  By 1921, Hale had been joined by chemist Arthur A. Noyes and physicist Robert A. Millikan. These three men set the school, which by then had been renamed the California Institute of Technology, firmly on its new course.