Big Results from Alumni Council’s St. Lawrence Fund Participation Program
The Alumni Council, about 40 graduates who volunteer to improve St. Lawrence in key areas where alumni can make a difference, has begun a personal calling program to reach classmates and friends who may have given to St. Lawrence in the past 10 years but who are not regular donors. Council Development Committee Chair Bill Crombie ’69 and Project Coordinator Deena Giltz McCullough’84 led a four-week calling blitz by 24 council members that resulted in over 200 contacts and pledges and gifts totaling over $11,000 from 139 alumni.
“Bill, Deena and all the callers stressed to alumni that the most important thing they can do for the University every year is to confirm their participation in the St. Lawrence Fund at whatever level is possible,” said Alex Kirby Taylor ’89, council president. “The amount is less important than the act of participating. We will continue to need the broad support of our alumni, parents and friends each year if the University is going to meet its ambitious objectives.”
Taylor said that the calling program fit perfectly with council objectives to communicate the excitement of campus momentum. Many of the conversations were just what alumni needed to jump-start a new relationship with St. Lawrence. Ken Polk’91, vice president of the council, remembers that “one call was to a husband and wife who graduated two years before me. The husband said, ‘I haven't really thought about SLU too much but you've got me pretty excited about things.” Polk says the personal touch made the difference, and his own well-informed enthusiasm about the University’s progress was, he hopes, compelling.
Vice President of University Advancement Michael Archibald applauded the council’s hard work, repeating his belief that “Every gift counts exactly the same, whether $10 or $10,000 or $10 million. Alumni get to vote their confidence in us at whatever level is appropriate to their circumstances. What we ask is that every Laurentian make a thoughtful gift each year at the level they choose.”
Archibald says that if all alumni who gave at least once in the last three years gave annually, the alumni participation rate would be 47%, a percentage much more aligned with the rate of the liberal arts colleges with whom St. Lawrence compares itself, and which are compared to St. Lawrence in the U.S. News and World Report annual rankings guide.
The council maintains a Web site, with members’ names and biographies, minutes of its meetings and resource material. To discuss the Momentum Campaign with a council member, contact Lisa Cania, associate vice president for University relations and staff liaison to the council, lcania@stlawu.edu, or Barbara Knauf, assistant director of alumni and parent programs and coordinator of the council calling program, bknauf@stlawu.edu.
