The Fund: All Together Now
On an evening back in April, Mitchell Seagrave, a senior, went to Hopkins Center, sat down at a long table littered with sandwich trays, paper, and telephones, and began calling alumni he didn't know. Seagrave did this several nights in a row. He had volunteered along with 210 other students to help out the Alumni Fund by participating in a "telethon," calling alumni who — out of apathy, lack of sympathy, or poverty — had not given. Seagrave and the other students made 1,655 calls in all, and they raised $32,082 for Dartmouth.
Along with the students, some 4,000 alumni class agents worked for the fund this year. Together, they built a record Alumni Fund, raising $6,363,000 from 25,000 donors. The fund exceeded its goal by ten per cent and finished more than $1 million ahead of the amount raised last year. Alumni donors increased by 817 and overall alumni participation reached 62 per cent, which Dartmouth claims as best in the nation.
Twelve classes holding reunions in June contributed $3.1 million, almost half of the total amount. The leader was the 25-year class of 1954, which, guided by Stephen Mullins, the head agent, gave the College $1,054,000. Of that amount $754,000 was credited to the Alumni Fund and the remainder to the. Campaign for Dart- mouth. (Just a year ago, the class of 1953, at its 25th reunion, was the first class to raise over $1 million for Dartmouth.)
Other classes setting reunion records, with their dollar totals, were: 1924 ($129,000), 1933 ($256,000), 1934 ($252,000), 1935 ($244,000), 1958 ($315,000), 1960 ($238,000), and 1974 (531,000). In addition, the class of 1960 set the all-time donor record with 629 contributors. The class of 1936 set the non-reunion record by raising $120,000.
More than 1,600 parents — that is, "non-Dartmouth" parents of present and former students — contributed $250,000, another record.
Shortly after the conclusion of the Alumni Fund, its executive director, Josiah Stevenson IV '57, who also managed last year's record campaign, was promoted to director of development at Dartmouth. Stevenson succeeded Robert Finney '63, who had resigned.
