25-Year Glass Funds Near $700,000 Total
A GAIN during the past six months Dartmouth's permanent endowment has been substantially bolstered by alumni gifts to Class 25th Reunion Memorial Funds. With the receipt of $113,000 this period goes into the record books as the most productive in the 13-year history of the program. During the comparable period last year $63,000 was received. This year's progress raises the 25th Reunion Gift total to $689,500.
The Class of 1876 was responsible for the first 25th Reunion Gift to Dartmouth at the time of its return to Hanover in 1901. Throughout the next 37 years many classes presented gifts of various sorts to the College at 25th Reunions. Perhaps the best known of the gifts of this period is the Outing Club House on Occom Pond made possible by the Class of 1900. Other classes contributed scholarship and loan funds.
The present uniform 25th Reunion Gift program started in 1938 when the Class of 1913 established a Memorial Fund which was to form part of the permanent endowment of the College. It was hoped that other classes would recognize the merit of this type of gift and present similar Funds. Subsequent classes have done exactly that, and as a result Dartmouth now has available about $20,000 of additional income each year from this source. From modest beginnings the program has blossomed into Dartmouth's second major fund-raising project, with 33 classes participating. Although it began some 23 years later than the all-important annual Alumni Fund, 3,500 alumni have already contributed close to $700,000 to it.
The Alumni Council has recognized the potential of Class Funds from the very beginning. This group was instrumental in the establishment of 1913's Fund, setting up certain basic policies for the program. Since then, the Council's Committee on Class Gifts has guided its development with the long-range interests of the College in mind. Much of the present spectacular progress can be traced to the valuable work done by three men who have served as chairman of this committee: Sigurd S. Larmon '14, Edward E. Martin '19, and Windsor C. Batchelder '19. The Class Gifts Committee now functions under the over-all direction of the newlyformed Dartmouth Development Council with Wilbur W. Bullen '22 serving as chairman, and Robert C. Borwell '25, Charles W. Bartlett '27 and Richard W. Walker '28 completing the membership.
Perhaps more than any other alumni activity this program depends on the leadership and initiative of individual classes. No class is obligated to raise a 25th Reunion Fund. Except for the broad guidance of the Alumni Council Committee, each class is free to conduct its campaign in its own way, assisted by a full-time staff officer in Hanover.
It is difficult, therefore, to describe precisely the course of a typical class campaign. However, the general outline is clear. A class chairman is usually appointed by the Executive Committee between the 15th and 20th Reunions, a period in which much important ground work can be accomplished. It seems important that the class be informed of the project, its purpose, and its importance to the College before the campaign begins in earnest after the 20th Reunion. Annual campaigns are conducted during the fall each year after the 20th and every effort is made to avoid conflict with the springtime Alumni Fund. The last two years are the most active, with regional committee members talking with class members personally to discuss participation in the project. After an intensive final-year campaign, running right through the spring, presentation of the gift takes place at the class banquet on the Saturday evening of the 25th reunion weekend.
There has been no clear-cut pattern for activity following the 25th Reunion. Most classes have conducted occasional campaigns for modest additions, but to date no such effort has produced more than $7,500. There is some question as to what constitutes the best pattern for this activity, and at present the Class Gifts Committee and the Development Council are exploring this matter.
The growth of Class Funds during the early years of the program was comparatively slow and it was not until 1945 that the first $100,000 had been raised. Five years ago the 1919 Fund of $26,000 led all other classes and at that time there were only four Funds exceeding $20,000. Beginning with the remarkable and now famous performance of the Class of 1923, which presented $107,000 in June 1948, there has been a rapid and often spectacular development of the whole program. Since then $276,000 has been added for a gain of 67% in a little over two years. More than $100,000 has been given in the past six months.
1923's great achievement was surpassed last June by the Class of 1925. Chairman Robert C. Borwell and his co-workers are certainly to be congratulated for obtaining gifts totalling $112,000 from their classmates, thereby leading this class to a final result of greatest value to the College. Far more significant than the actual money involved is the new perspective such an achievement very properly creates. The effect of 1923's great Fund two years ago is still being felt, and it will continue for a good many years. Leaders in 1923 will tell you they made their super-human effort particularly in the hope of stimulating other classes to come up to a new standard. 1925 has now done this, and by proving that 1923's $100,000 was no freak, it has given the whole program new purpose, importance, and horizons.
Of the program's present total 73% is credited to the Class Funds of the following ten classes which are singled out here in recognition of the vital part each has played in the development of the program: 1. 1925 $112,281 2. 1923 107,467 3. 1926 60,037 4. 1924 50,024 5. 1918 37,882 6. 1919 33,720 7. 1922 29,185 8. 1921 26,402 9. 1920 24,360 10. 1915 22,351
As expected, the Class of 1926 has been responsible for the largest portion of the over-all increase of the last six months. This class is in the final months before its 25th Reunion and a generous response by class members has added $38,000 since last June to bring the total to $60,000. Under a special arrangement approved on an experimental basis by Alumni Council committees, 1926 is campaigning jointly for its Memorial Fund and the 1951 Alumni Fund, with a single objective of $126,000. Co-Chairmen Robert M. Stopford and Albert E. M. Louer and others serving on the Fund Committee are confident this objective will be exceeded. Two individual gifts of $10,000 have already been credited to this Fund, the largest gifts ever received by a Class Fund.
Excellent progress has also been made by the four other classes, 1927 through 1930, now actively campaigning. All now stand over $10,000, and their combined total exceeds by $25,000 the total in hand last year from the corresponding classes. This is one indication of promising prospects for the next four years.
Additions were unusually large this year among the post-25th Reunion classes. All seventeen classes except the four which have most recently passed the 25th Reunion received gifts, with total additions amounting to almost $22,000. The largest increase came in 1914 which added $7,400. The Class of 1918 upped its Fund total by $4,100, 1917 by $2,300 and five others added $1,000 or more.
More than 100 men have worked actively for this program during the period just concluded. The names of the chairmen are included in the accompanying table but there are many others who assist them. Such men as Sidney J. Flanigan '23, Clarence E. Goss '23, Horton Conrad '25, Donald B. Hopkins '26, and Carleton Blunt '26 are typical of many others who have spent and are spending long hours working on their Class Funds. Without such skillful help the program could not possibly have prospered as it has.
The scope of recent progress can be appreciated when it is realized that more has been given to Class Funds since last June than was contributed during the entire first seven years of the program. With 1926 comcontinuing its work through June, it can. be expected that additions for the full 1950-51 fiscal year will reach $160,000, more than 850,000 greater than in any previous year.
This Class Gifts program is relatively new. In terms of Alumni Fund age, it stands at the same point that this annual giving program did in 1928. One only has to remember that in 1928 the Alumni Fund received $120,000 (in contrast to last year's $415,000) to understand the tremendous potential of the 25th Reunion Gifts. Already 3,500 alumni have made gifts of almost $700,000 through it to Dartmouth's capital funds. Some time within the next few years the million dollar mark will be reached, and from there on the ceiling on the helpfulness of Class Gifts to Dartmouth and its work is virtually unlimited.
Glass Memorial Fund Summary Class Chairman 1906 Norman Russell 1908 John H. Hinman 1910 Leland Powers 1911 John C. Sterling 1912 Henry B. Van Dyne 1913 Parker Trowbridge 1914 Martin J. Remsen 1915 Charles E. Griffith 1916 H. Clifford Bean 1917 Gilbert N. Swett 1918 David L. Garratt 1919 Windsor C. Batchelder 1920 Stanley J. Newcomer 1921 Robert P. Burroughs 1922 Wilbur W. Bullen 1923 * Julius A. Rippel 1924 Richard A. Henry 1925 Robert C. Borwell 1926 ┼ 1927 Harry B. Cummings 1928 George H. Pasfield 1929 Jack D. Gunther 1930 Clifford W. Michel 1931 Charles S. McAllister 1932 Charles D. Doerr 1933 *George F. Theriault 1934 James F. Wendell 1936 Albert L. Gibney 1938 1939 1942 1944 1947 TOTAL Added SinceJune 30,1950 $ 275.41 1,599.47 1,418.28 1,051.65 50.00 20.50 7,372.85 10.00 1,250.00 2,321.56 4,125.00 655.00 1,429.95 27,303.72 38,223.74 10,833.99 5,849.06 7,690.60 1,491.00 25.00 16.25 21.00 $113,034.03 Total Feb. 9,1951 $ 11,029.51 12,820.00 7,351.90 10,600.00 16,185.00 11.993.25 15,671.74 22,351.13 16.045.72 13,997.55 37.881.73 33,720.17 24,360.31 26,401.87 29.185.48 107,467.45 50.024.49 112,281.20 60,036.77 19,208.41 17,251.80 15.469.26 11,738.43 144.20 1,958.03 166.00 16.25 1,644.57 956.51 1,276.10 101.32 4.00 124.72 $689,464.87 * Acting Chairman. 1926 Combined Fund Co-Chairmen: Robert M. Stopford and Albert E.M. Louer.
HEADS 25TH YEAR GIFTS PROGRAM: Wilbur W. Bullen '22, of Boston, is Chairman of the Dartmouth Alumni Council's Committee on Class Gifts.
ASSOCIATE, DARTMOUTH DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL
