The Barber Challenge
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| Hear Ronde Issue a Challenge at Alumni Reunions |
We recently made a pledge to give U.Va. $1 million, which will be divided among five areas that we are especially passionate about: the McIntire School of Commerce, Athletics, the Young Alumni Council, the Walter N. Ridley Scholarship Fund and the Children's Hospital.
Half of our gift comes without strings attached. The other half comes as a challenge to alumni who are either not yet donors or not yet in the habit of making gifts on a regular basis.
Here's a curious statistic: Even though 81 percent of alumni who earned undergraduate degrees from U.Va. report that they are "highly satisfied" with the education they received,* only 25 percent, or 25,200, of them support the institution financially.
As alumni who cherished and benefited from our undergraduate years at U.Va., we can — and should — do much better than that.
We want to see the number of alumni donors with undergraduate degrees grow by 5 percent each year for five years (a total of 6,300 new donors) to reach a total of 31,500. Every year that our challenge is met, we'll send the University $100,000. By the time The Barber Challenge ends in five years, this will total $500,000 — the full second half of our $1 million pledge.
In other words, every year during the challenge that you step up and support U.Va. in sufficient numbers, we'll step up, too.
Why does increasing the number of alumni who financially support U.Va. matter?
- It's the right thing to do.
- There is power in numbers: small gifts of $25 or $50 add up quickly to keep the institution vital and make big ideas come to life.
- Most college ranking systems use the percentage of alumni who make gifts each year as a key measure.
- A predictable stream of annual funding protects the University from reliance on the state, which currently provides only 8.1 percent of U.Va.'s total budget.
- Our gifts support the development of today's students, just like earlier generations of alumni supported our development.
We intend to keep supporting U.Va. year after year.
What about you? Which areas of U.Va. are you passionate enough about that you'd be willing to skip a dinner out one night this year in order to make a gift of $25 or $50? Or, if you have achieved a level of financial success and can afford something larger, what program, department or school would you like to thank for its influence on your life?
By showing our appreciation together, we alumni — whether we're newly graduated or well-established in our careers — can make a big difference in the lives of current students and faculty.
One gift. Any size. Every year. That's all it takes to meet The Barber Challenge.
* Source: U.Va. Office of Institutional Assessment and Studies, "University of Virginia Survey of Graduates of the Undergraduate Class of 1996, Report for State Council of Higher Education and Department of Planning and Budget, September, 15, 1999."