New Donor Fund Aims to Ease Costs for Harvard’s Club Sports Teams

Harvard Athletics announced in August the creation of the Community Through Sports Fund, a two-part gift that will provide both endowed and immediate-use support for the University’s 50 club sports teams.

The fund was established by Stephanie F. Connaughton ’87, a founding partner of Boston Legacy FC, the city’s new professional women’s soccer team, and her husband, John Connaughton, chair of Bain Capital, to reduce barriers to participation and expand resources for teams, including support for coaches, equipment, and travel.

Stephanie Connaughton said the gift grew out of her own experience as a walk-on varsity lacrosse player at Harvard, which connected her with students she might not have met otherwise.

“It gave me access to different classes of students that I as a freshman that I might not have otherwise known,” she said.

She said watching women’s club soccer games while her son, William “Will” G. Connaughton ‘22, was at Harvard also shaped the gift.

“I was so struck by the camaraderie between the players and the professionalism and the seriousness with which they took club sports,” Connaughton said.

Connaughton then worked with Harvard’s fundraising staff and club sport administrators to learn how the program is funded. She said she was surprised by its scale and by the leadership roles captains take on, including raising money for their own teams.

Club Sports Director Alex Carras said his department plans to put the immediate-use funds toward areas where clubs need support, including travel and coaching.

This year, Athletics is distributing part of the donation through a Community Through Sports grant, for which clubs can apply to cover both athletic expenses and team-bonding events.

Carras said the department has also expanded its athlete assistance program, which can fully cover club dues for students who qualify for financial aid. New initiatives include a “super fan” program in which clubs earn points for attending other teams’ events, and a student advisory board.

Carras said he did not have specifics on how the endowed portion would be spent or how long it would last.

“This is definitely a long-term gift, to my knowledge, and meant to sustain the growth,” Carras said. “I think that’s another aspect of club sports that they’ve become very popular and sometimes very intense, very competitive. So, with that growth, we’re just trying to match that level of support.”

Carras added that the club sports, which drew roughly 1,755 students last academic year, will continue to grow beyond the 50 current teams, with his department reviewing applications for new clubs.

Women’s club volleyball captain Kelly Gildea ‘28 said that the team draws on Harvard Undergraduate Association grants, a club sports grant, and its own fundraising.

Those sources have largely covered the team’s baseline costs, including league registration, its coach, and tournament entry fees.

But in years when the team traveled to multi-day tournaments, much of the money had to be raised from alumni and players’ parents, she said. She added that last spring, equipment problems with the team’s nets left it practicing in a makeshift setup.

“We can do more and have to worry less about external fundraising if we were to have funding from other sources,” Gildea said. “So hearing about this grant, which I hadn’t before, is honestly great news.”

For teams that are rebuilding, the fund could offer student leaders a chance to become more competitive.

Women’s club lacrosse captain Victoria C. Evangelista ’29 said this year’s board made up mostly of sophomores still learning how to run a club. Funding was a struggle last year, she said, especially since its $25 dues are “mostly optional” for players.

“We’ve definitely had to learn how to become more self-standing because we haven’t had a ton of support in the past,” Evangelista said. “We never really had enough money to get a bus or rental cars or anything a bit easier. So we’ve definitely had to rely a lot on public transportation and definitely a lot out of our own pocket.”

“So it’s definitely extremely reassuring and gives me a lot of hope for the future,” she said of the fund.

Women’s club soccer president Sylvie S. Wurmser ‘27 said her team is in an unusual position. It draws on a separate endowed fund for club soccer, which she said has paid for team dinners, jerseys, and trips to tournaments in Texas and New York. Without it, she said, the team could not afford its community events on HUA grants alone.

Wurmser, who spoke with Connaughton as the gift took shape, says she hopes the new fund will extend that kind of support to other teams.

“I think that this new grant will kind of equalize the field a little bit more,” Wurmser said. “I imagine that it’s going to be able to give other teams that don’t have a chance to have a donor like this the opportunity to actually have team dinners, give their team different bonding events, and just different experiences like formally a little bit more prohibitive.”

“I’m really hoping that there is zero cost prohibition to joining club soccer or any club sport. And I think that this fund is going to level the playing field more,” Wurmser added.

—Staff writer Julia A. Karabolli can be reached at [email protected].

—Staff writer Tanya J. Vidhun can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on X @tanyavidhun.