Capital Campaign Reaches Ten Million

AN auspicious beginning for Dartmouth's 190 th year came in midSeptember when it was announced that the Capital Gifts Campaign had passed the ten-million-dollar mark toward its two-year goal of $17,000,000.

Charles J. Zimmerman '23, national chairman, reported that a total of 4,281 alumni, parents, friends, corporations and foundations had made pledges and gifts totaling $10,071,563 through September 15.

This amount together with the $455,300 contributed by over 14,000 alumni and parents to the 1958 Dartmouth Alumni Fund made 1957-58 the best year in fundraising in Dartmouth's long history.

The Capital Campaign total included $1,574,213 from parents and friends of the College, $726,000 given by six foundations and over $100,000 donated by corporations.

The largest single gift to the campaign to date is a pledge of one million dollars by an alumnus who prefers to remain anonymous. The Spaulding-Potter Charitable Trusts of Manchester, N. H., contributed $500,000, while fourteen other pledges or gifts of $100,000 or more have been received.

Analysis of pledges and gifts by classes shows the Class of 1915 leading with a total of $417,624 from 53 members of the class. The Class of 1922 ranks second with 83 class members pledging or giving $353,187. Ranking third is the Class of 1933, which under the leadership of Donald F. D'Ar.cy, produced pledges and gifts from nearly 400 class members totaling $314,000 in its Combined Fund Campaign. Other classes reporting pledges and gifts totaling more than $200,000 are 1918, 1923, 1925, 1926, 1927 and 1929.

Details on Capital Campaign results and general information on campaign progress and plans were contained in a campaign newspaper, The Capital D, which was mailed in September to all alumni, parents and friends of the College. The Capital D will be issued periodically during the coming year.

The $10-million figure announced last month was the result of efforts conducted by local committees of alumni and parents in some fifty areas across the nation beginning late last fall and running through this past summer in the "Leadership" and "Special Gifts" phases of the campaign.

Chairman Zimmerman termed the results "heartwarming" and went on to say, "Dartmouth men everywhere can take pride in the magnificent results which their efforts to date have produced. In every area where solicitation on behalf of the Capital Gifts Campaign has been undertaken, the alumni, parents and friends of the College have met the challenge of the Capital Campaign in true Dartmouth fashion."

However, Mr. Zimmerman noted that only about 15% of Dartmouth's family had been contacted in the campaign to date and that the major challenge remains in the months ahead.

"The majority of the large pledges and gifts have been already received," he said, "and it will require new dimensions in both working and giving on the part of the great majority of our alumni and parents if the remaining seven million dollars is to be realized and our goal achieved."

Campaign plans for a general canvass among 75% of Dartmouth's alumni have now been developed, with activity scheduled to get under way this month and continue through June 30, 1959. Local campaign committees are expected to be active in some 100 areas throughout the nation, from New York to San Francisco and from Portland, Maine to Miami, Florida. Campaign work will start this fall in most East Coast areas, parts of the Mid-West and in areas of the Southwest. During the winter and early spring the campaign activity will move southward into the Atlantic Coastal regions, to Virginia and Florida, into such mid-western regions as Detroit, Toledo, Milwaukee, and out to California and the Pacific Northwest. Late spring campaigns are scheduled for certain areas in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, for areas in Pennsylvania, Minnesota and South and North Dakota and for all Southern States except Virginia and Florida.

The opening of a general campaign for capital funds this fall also marks the introduction of the Dartmouth Share Plan. Under this plan alumni, parents and friends who make pledges or gifts to the Capital Campaign will have their names listed by appropriate "shares" on a plaque. Seven types of "shares," named for outstanding persons in Dartmouth's history, have been adopted. These are:

Eleazar Wheelock Share for those contributing $5,000 or more.

William Jewett Tucker Share for those contributing $3,000 to $4,999.

Daniel Webster Share for those contributing $1,500 to $2,999.

Craven Laycock Share for those contributing $1,000 to $1,499.

Salmon P. Chase Share for those contributing $600 to $999.

Rufus Choate Share for those contributing $300 to $599.

Samson Occom Share for those contributing $150 to $299.

The names of all donors are listed by "shares" in the first issue of the campaign newspaper and will be so listed in all future issues.

The regional staff offices in New York, Boston and Chicago, which were opened last year, will remain in operation through next June. It is expected that some 5,000 alumni and parents will be called upon to serve during the coming months as campaign leaders and workers in their areas. Meetings will be held in most of the larger cities throughout the United States and most alumni will be seen personally by a campaign worker.

Because of the intensive effort required in this general canvass, the Dartmouth Alumni Fund Committee has re-emphasized that there will be no formal Alumni Fund campaign, as such, during the spring of 1959. However, the Alumni Fund will remain open for gifts and the Committee has re-stated its previously announced policy that any alumnus who makes a pledge or gift to the Capital Campaign will automatically receive Alumni Fund contributor and regularity credit for both 1958 and 1959 and for any subsequent years in which pledge payments are made.

In summing up the job at hand over the next ten-month period, Chairman Zimmerman wrote: "The challenge to all members of the Dartmouth family and their friends is clear. We all must think in terms of more generous support for our College, in terms of a 'capital' gift rather than an annual gift. Each of us must decide personally what we can and will do to help make Dartmouth the pre-eminent College we want her to become."