Alumni Fund Opens 1955 Campaign

WITH forty years of remarkable growth behind it, the Dartmouth Alumni Fund moves into its fifth decade this month with the formal opening of the 1955 campaign.

Last year the Alumni Fund marked its 40th anniversary with a record-breaking total of $700,365 from 18,259 contributors and a new alumni participation record of 67.7 per cent. These results climaxed the new high level of achievement reached by the Fund in very recent years and pushed the grand total of gifts for the past four years to more than $2,500,000.

The Alumni Council's Alumni Fund Committee, headed by Roger C. Wilde '21 of Chicago, is confident that this momentum will carry forward in the present campaign. A dollar objective of $700,000 has been set for 1955, and the class agents, on whom the full weight of the campaign rests, will be working for the highest participation ever. The unrealized potential in number of contributors is indicated by the fact that alumni non-givers last year totaled 9,000, of whom 4,000 were graduates who had the benefit of the full four-year course at Dartmouth.

The Alumni Fund's 1955 objective is $40,000 larger than that of last year. Of the $700,000 to be raised between now and June 30, $660,000 will be needed by the College for current operating expenses and the Alumni Council hopes to add another $40,000 to the Alumni Fund Scholarship Reserve. During the past four years the Fund has produced $311,000 for scholarship aid. Four Alumni Fund Scholarships, one for each class, have been endowed at $30,000 each; and $191,000 has been allotted to the Alumni Fund Scholarship Reserve, from which the College is drawing $25,000 this year. The success of the Fund in achieving these scholarship goals is a major reason why 23 per cent of the freshmen and sophomores are now on aid while only 17 per cent of the two upper classes are receiving scholarship help.

Toward this year's $700,000 objective the Fund Committee is counting on $50,000 to be raised by the Parents Committee and $50,000 to be received from Memorial Fund income. The dollar goal for the alumni is $600,000, or $50,000 more than last year.

The effort to raise $50,000 among Dartmouth parents will be directed by a special parents committee headed by Joel S. Mitchell, president of Standard Brands, Inc., of New York City. He is the father of Joel S. Mitchell Jr. '57. Last year the Parents Committee, under the chairmanship of David F. Sibley of Boston, raised $46,784 from 949 contributors. During the past four campaigns Dartmouth parents have given a total of $165,000.

The "opening gun" in the 1955 campaign is a statement mailed by the Fund Committee to reach all Dartmouth alumni about April 1. The mailing piece is keyed to "The Power of the Fund" and, in addition to announcing the year's objectives, cites as an example of the Alumni Fund's powerful influence in the life of the College the specific advantages of the operating income and increased scholarship aid made possible by the four-year gain of $900,000 over the 1951 level of giving.

The April 1 mailing also includes a letter from Mr. Wilde, who is serving as Alumni Fund chairman for the second year. In it he reports that at the start of the 1955 drive gifts of nearly $100,000 are already in hand. This is slightly below the pre-campaign showing of last year.

As the 1955 Fund wheels begin to turn, fourteen new class agents are taking over top direction of the campaigns in their classes. These leaders are: Hermon W. Farwell '02, James D. Gregg '14, Donald P. Sawyer 'si, Theodore D. Shapleigh '23, Ford H. Whelden '25, Herman H. Schnepel Jr. '28, John W. Moxon '29, William F. Steck '31, J. Moreau Brown '39, Hugh W. Schwarz '40, Bruce Friedlich '41, Kinsley A. Ball Jr. '49, Gary H. Mansur '51 and Kevin I. Sullivan '54.

General direction of the campaign is in the hands of the Alumni Council's Alumni Fund Committee which, in addition to Chairman Roger C. Wilde, includes Nichol M. Sandoe Jr. '45, executive secretary, in charge of operations of the Fund Office in Hanover; Carleton G. Broer '27, Ellsworth B. Buck '14, Sumner D. Kilmarx '22 and Robert S. Oelman '31.

JOEL S. MITCHELL, president of StandardBrands, Inc., who heads the Parents Committee in the 1955 Alumni Fund campaign.