Exciting News About the Montpelier Collective and JMU Athletics

A New Chapter for the Montpelier Collective

As we begin 2025, we’re excited to share details about the next chapter for the Montpelier Collective and its role in supporting JMU Athletics. At the end of last week, JMU published the first of this year’s Roan Remarks which covered some pretty big news.

We’re now excited to announce ourselves that the Montpelier Collective will officially operate under the leadership and management of James Madison University as part of Honors1. This transition which is expected to be completed by July 1, 2025 is part of our commitment to ensuring continued success for JMU Athletics while adapting to the evolving legal and regulatory landscape around NIL.

Why We’re Making This Move

Since its inception, the Montpelier Collective has been dedicated to supporting JMU student-athletes through Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) opportunities, while doing it the right way, which for us was to ensure that we maintained a strong focus on our community and had a charitable impact. However, with current and upcoming legal changes for college athletics and evolving questions around future nonprofit status for NIL collectives, we’ve decided that the best approach was to start the transition of the Collective’s operations under the official umbrella of James Madison University. This move ensures future compliance with emerging legal requirements, enhances the university’s ability to directly support athletes, and creates a more streamlined experience for our donors.

What This Means

• We’re Not Going Away: The Montpelier Collective’s board has been hard at work over the holidays and continues to be so as we have already begun work on the next school year. The need for our work continues and remains critical as we deploy the donations made through 2024. While it will be in a different capacity, many of our board members plan to stay involved after the transition has been completed.
• Charitable Work Continues: We’re proud of the charitable efforts we’ve championed through the Collective, and we’ll continue that important work in 2025 to ensure we honor our commitments.
• Champions Drive Bourdon & Fundraising Events: We will continue to promote and enhance our Bourbon offerings with Champions Drive. We also plan to work directly with the university to offer unique fundraising events, and exclusive experiences will remain a cornerstone of our efforts.
• Donations Still Needed: While universities across the country (including JMU) anticipate being able to revenue share with athletes, contributions to support NIL will still be needed and donors will be able to contribute directly to JMU by working with the Duke Club. Your support will continue to empower our student-athletes and elevate JMU’s standing in collegiate athletics.

Thank You for Making This Possible

From the beginning, we set out to do things the right way — the JMU way. Your support at a critical and extremely uncertain time made it possible for us to achieve so much over the past few seasons. As we transition to this new framework, we continue to do so with the highest standards of our alumni and donors in mind.

There’s still much to figure out, but we’re excited about what’s ahead and grateful for your continued commitment to JMU Athletics.

Stay tuned for updates as we move forward together to elevate to new heights.

Go Dukes!