The Federal money transfers in the form of grants and contracts, that is.

Some thoughts on the matter:

The school’s fundraising machinery has swung into gear, sending several email blasts to alumni seeking gifts during what one solicitation called “a critical moment,” and many donors say they are stepping up their efforts.
At the same time, school leaders including President Alan Garber are focusing on conversations with the school’s heaviest-hitting donors as they seek to offset the Trump administration’s $2.26 billion federal funding freeze, according to people familiar with the efforts.

To the extent these efforts are successful, and early indications are that they are succeeding, this strongly suggests that Harvard has no intrinsic need of Federal—us taxpayers’—dollars. That’s eliding the more than $53 billion endowment with its 9.6% return on investment and roughly 5% year-on-year growth, net of disbursements from the endowment.

Some big donors…said Harvard, and not the federal government, should steer the school’s operations and priorities.

That, by itself is entirely true. However, just as private donors get to call the shots on how their donations must be used by the school, so it is with Federal dollars: the government gets to specify how its transfers are used by the school. Even more, just as those private donors have no intrinsic obligation to donate at all, so it is with the government—it has no obligation at all, intrinsic or otherwise, to send any money at all to the school.

Harvard can operate entirely freely if it does not accept Federal dollars, and Harvard has no obligation, intrinsic or otherwise, to accept those dollars.

Little donors illustrate another reason for donating to Harvard. Lawyer Jim Ehrman:

…I am convincing myself that I am making a statement in support of Harvard’s “No” to Trump.

This has nothing to do with the legitimacy, or lack, of the Federal government continuing to fiscally support, with its funding transfers, the school’s antisemitic bigotry and support for terrorist-supporters on its campus. This is, instead, centered on knee-jerk Never Trumpism.