1951 Fund "Finest Ever"
IN MY BOOK, the 1951 Alumni Fund results are the finest which have ever been achieved by any college or university." This was the characterization given by Charles J. Zimmerman '23, Fund chairman, to the 1951 campaign which saw record-smashing figures established in total amount, number of contributors, and size of average gift. The participation of 65% of all living Dartmouth alumni was not a new record but it matched the high mark of last year and maintained Dartmouth's leadership among all colleges in this respect.
The final figures for the 1951 Alumni Fund were $577,262 from 15,417 alumni, parents and friends of the College. This marked the first time in the 36-year history of the Fund that the dollar total exceeded $500,000, the objective of this year's campaign, and the first time that the contributor total went beyond 15,000. The increase over the 1950 dollar total was $162,346 or 39 per cent. The gain in contributors was 472. The average gift to the Fund this year was $37.44, a 35 per cent increase over the $27.76 average of 1950. Twenty-eight classes out of the sixty participating went over their objectives, with 1923 raising $20,385 for the largest amount by any one class. The performance of 1926 in contributing $16,549 to the Alumni Fund while raising $126,000 for its 25-year gift was also outstanding.
In their first year of organized participation, the parents of Dartmouth men made 358 gifts to the Fund totaling $28,184. The 1951 Fund was the first in several years, however, to exceed its objective on alumni contributions alone.
In a special report mailed this summer to all Dartmouth alumni, President Dickey revealed that all but $75,000 of the 1951 total would be applied, as it has been previously, to current operating expenses of the College, thus preventing what would otherwise have been a deficit for 1950-51. The Fund surplus of $75,000 has been set up as an Alumni Fund Scholarship Reserve, to be used beginning next year to bolster Dartmouth's scholarship aid program, particularly by increasing individual grants to outstanding applicants.
