Alumni Fund Has Million-Dollar Goal

CHAIRMAN, ALUMNI FUND COMMITTEE

WITHIN, the last three years, the Alumni Fund Committee has made two of the most important decisions in the long history of the Fund.

In 1957, faced with the fact that for the next two years the Capital Gifts Campaign would be seeking $17,000,000 from alumni and friends of the College, we had to decide whether to abandon the Alumni Fund effort entirely or to continue the Fund on a modified basis. Professional counsel, though not insistent, advised against its continuance. We chose not to take this advice. Instead, we voted to keep our splendid organization of Class Agents intact and run a campaign in 1958 among those alumni who were not then being asked for capital gifts.

How wise a decision this turned out to be was amply demonstrated when, with approximately 25% of the alumni removed from solicitation because of the Special Gifts phase of the Capital Campaign, we raised for Dartmouth $500,000 which the College simply never would have received otherwise.

Again, last spring when it looked as though the $17,000,000 goal was completely unattainable by the June 30 deadline, our Alumni Fund organization was called upon to solicit every alumnus who for one reason or another had not, up until then, pledged or made his capital gift. Result - $800,000 in gifts ranging from $5 to $10,000 came pouring in during June to insure the success of one of the most amazing college campaigns in history.

This year the Alumni Fund Committee faced if anything a more crucial decision than the 1957 one. Should we, in i960, organize the type of campaign which we were obliged to run in 1958 and solicit only those alumni who had not made a capital gift? Or should we step forward with a bold and vigorous program aimed at committing the Alumni Fund immediately to the role of financial spearhead of Dartmouth's avowed purpose of "preeminence in all things."

The decision was not an easy one to make. For one thing, we realized that a great many alumni are paying off their capital gift pledges. The last thing we would want to do would be to antagonize any alumnus by exerting pressure on him to give more than he feels he can afford.

On the other hand, many alumni have completed their capital gifts and have indicated their intention of making a gift to the Alumni Fund this year.

At its fall meeting the Alumni Fund Committee came to grips with the question and went on record as favoring a strong stand for a $1,000,000 goal in i960. We did not, however, wish to make a firm commitment on that stand without obtaining first-hand knowledge of how the alumni body felt about it.

Accordingly, in November we held a series of dinner meetings with leading alumni in Boston, New York, Chicago, Cleveland and Hanover and asked them frankly how they felt about it.

While there were a few men at these meetings who were skeptical of whether such a goal was attainable this year, opinion was overwhelmingly in favor of giving it a try. We sensed from this reaction to our proposal that if we failed to accept the challenge, we would definitely be letting Dartmouth down.

Finally, at a four-hour session in Hanover on January 21, the Alumni Fund Committee decided to recommend a goal of $1,000,000 for the i960 Alumni Fund.

The following day it was unanimously approved by the Dartmouth Alumni Council and the full Board of Trustees.

That Dartmouth needs and can use every dollar of this amount is not open to question. The Capital Campaign has successfully produced the funds needed for new plant, and in some measure, for faculty compensation. However, the daily operating expenses are being-increased by the new plant addition, and the faculty compensation problem is far from solved even with $3,000,000 made available through the Capital Campaign. As President Dickey reported in his January talk to the Trustees and the Alumni Council, "The Dartmouth Trustees have accepted the challenge of enabling our top teacher- scholars to achieve an annual total income, including benefits, in the $25,000 range well prior to 1969. The first decisive step on our way toward that goal," the President emphasized, "will be an Alumni Fund that progressively exceeds one million dollars."

Another factor that had a bearing on establishing this goal was the decision of the Alumni Fund Committee to give participation credit for i960 to every alumnus who has made a pledge or a gift to the Capital Campaign, regardless of whether it has been completed or pledges are being currently paid. Participation credit means that your name is listed for purposes of regularity of annual giving to the Fund. No dollars contributed to the Capital Campaign have been or will be credited to the Alumni Fund. This means that we are seeking $1,000,000 in new money.

The Committee found that there has been a lot of confusion and misunderstanding of this, and we felt that by clearing the decks so that every alumnus would know where he stands, it would provide much more flexibility for the Class Agents to approach alumni for i960 contributions. At the same time it would allow most alumni the freedom to decide if they wanted to help in 1960 without doubt about loss of regularity or participation credit.

Let me point out that this participation credit is being granted only for 1960. The only alumni who will automatically receive participation credit in the 1961 Alumni Fund will be those who are still making payments against Capital Campaign pledges in that year.

We realize that in establishing this goal we are taking a calculated risk, that for the first time in Alumni Fund history it is entirely possible that we could fall short of the million dollar goal in this particular year - but we feel that it is a risk that must be taken if we are going to give Dartmouth a "running start into the third century."

As our Fund resumes its rightful place in the life of the College with the largest goal in history, I think we all agree that the Fund has come of age. The Committee believes that a thoughtful, mature attitude on the part of the Fund Committee and the Class Agents toward our 1960 campaign will be matched by a thoughtful and mature response on the part of all alumni.

The Dartmouth Alumni Fund always has been the responsibility of Dartmouth alumni. It was conceived by us, directed by us, and nurtured over many years by the dedication and generosity of many thousands of us. This spring we each have an opportunity to demonstrate the importance we attach to a strong Alumni Fund and a strong Dartmouth.