Sallyportal: Madly Blogging Reed

Double the Impact of Your Gift

By Randall S. Barton on December 05, 2013 02:30 PM
Million Dollar Match

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, which provides alumni with an incentive to give to the annual fund.

To kickstart the challenge, the initiative was launched by gifts of $25,000 or more from a core of 22 generous donors (see sidebar), including Konrad Stephen 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.”

A Generous Thanks to Our  Sponsors

Konrad Stephen Alt ’81 & Maureen A. Kennedy

Matthew P. Bergman ’86 & Kimberly Bergman

Jane Buchan & James Driscoll

Francisca W. Erickson '45

John H. Fine ’82 & Susan Harrington

Daniel B. Greenberg ’62 & Susan Steinhauser

David R. Hardy ’71 & Anne Davidson Hardy

Dennis & Jane Henner

George Michael James ’77 & Karen Flannery James

Jeffrey & Hyunja Kenner

Anna Hayes Levin & Peter Levin

Sandra Mintz

Linda Hammill Matthews ’67 & E. Curtis Matthews Jr.

Robert A. Morris ’65 & Celia Hansen Morris ’64

Peter Norton x’65

Louise Pearson & Jack Henkin

Roger M. Perlmutter ’73 & Joan Kreiss '73

Kenneth E. Rees ’84 & Jeanne Gulner

Alice Larkin Steiner ’74 & Kevin K. Steiner ’74

Peter C. Stockman ’77 & Terry Stockman

Richard H. Wollenberg '75 & Barbara Wollenberg

Anonymous

The Million Dollar Match is a way of bringing the alumni community together to ensure that the college remains accessible to students, regardless of financial means. Reed alumni have responded generously to past challenge matches. 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 only applies to gifts from alumni. If you have questions about the details, we encourage you to contact the development office.)

“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,” Konrad says. “Our society needs those people,” he asserts. “There aren’t enough Reed College graduates out there in the world. We could use a whole lot more of them.”

Konrad, who majored in political science and wrote his thesis with Prof. Stefan Kapsch [political science 1975–2005], says Reed supported him as a student and showed him what smart people with good intentions can accomplish when they work together. Now the managing director of the Promontory Financial Group in San Francisco, he chairs the college relations committee for the Reed board of trustees and also chairs the Alumni Fundraising for Reed Steering Committee.

Of the major stakeholder groups—including students, faculty, and administrators—Konrad says alumni are the ones who carry Reed’s values and traditions over the longest span of time. They are a force for keeping the college true to its values.

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 yearly 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 the end of the fiscal year, June 30, 2014—or until the matching funds run out.A current student, Heather Joyce Milne ’16, used haiku to express her gratitude to the previous generations of Reedies who have provided for her education at Reed through their gifts to the Annual Fund.

My gratitude flows
To you in words, but even
They are not enough.

Tags: million dollar match