Eliot Circular

Double Your Money

By Randall S. Barton

Your gift to the Annual Fund could have double the impact this year.

Gifts from alumni of $1,000 or more will be matched dollar for dollar thanks to a new initiative known as the Million Dollar Match.

Million Dollar Match

The challenge was launched by gifts of $25,000 or more from a core of 22 generous donors, including trustee Konrad Alt ’81.

“Institutions like Reed don’t exist in a state of nature,” Konrad says. “They come about because people with vision, resources, and commitment want them to exist. When any of those things run out, they wither and decline.”

The Million Dollar Match is a way of bringing alumni together to ensure that the college remains accessible to students, regardless of financial means. Gifts of $1,000 or more made up $3.1 million of the $3.8 million raised for the Annual Fund last year. (It’s worth noting that the match applies only to gifts from alumni. If you have questions about the nitty-gritty, contact Breesa Culver ’01 in the Annual Fund.)

“Elite liberal arts colleges turn out critical thinkers and people with superior judgment skills and communication abilities more reliably and at a higher standard of quality than most big research universities,” says Konrad, who majored in political science and is now the managing director of the Promontory Financial Group. “Our society needs those people. There aren’t enough Reed College graduates out there in the world. We could use a whole lot more of them.”

The fact is that tuition covers only 60% of the cost of a Reed education; the bulk of the remainder comes from philanthropy, in the shape of the Annual Fund and the endowment.

The Annual Fund provides a critical part of the college’s operating budget and helps meet Reed’s most pressing needs. Its unrestricted dollars make an immediate impact, providing support for financial aid, student services, and resources for faculty and the library. This year, the Annual Fund target is $4.08 million, and contributions will be matched through June 30, 2014—or until the matching funds run out.

Physics major Heather Milne ’16 wrote a haiku to express her thanks to the generations of Reedies whose gifts to the Annual Fund made it possible for her to go to Reed.

my gratitude flows
to you in words, but even
they are not enough.

Make a gift.