Bates among top 10 in country for alumni giving
Robust alumni giving has pushed Bates into a select group of 10 colleges having the highest percentage of alumni making annual gifts, according to U.S. News & World Report.
Gifts from Bates alumni provide critical funding for everything from faculty salaries to financial aid. More students in the Class of 2017, pictured here, received need-based grant aid than any in Bates’ history, thanks in large part to alumni giving. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)
With a two-year average of 51.9 percent alumni participation, Bates is ninth on the list, which uses an average of a college’s alumni participation in 2011 and 2012.
“A gift to the Bates Fund is an enormous vote of confidence in the college and its mission.”
“I am so grateful to the thousands of alumni who make Bates a philanthropic priority,” says Sarah Pearson, vice president for college advancement and herself a member of the Class of 1975. “A gift to Batesis an enormous vote of confidence in the college and its mission.”
What’s more, Pearson adds, these gifts “have a tremendous impact on the work of our students and faculty.”
Number one on this year’s list is tiny Thomas Aquinas College in California (enrollment 370), followed by Princeton, Williams, Carleton, Amherst, Middlebury, Bowdoin, College of the Holy Cross, Bates and Centre College.
Growth in alumni participation at Bates (up from 40 percent in 2007) counters a national trend of fewer alumni making gifts. Alumni giving participation nationally has declined every year since 2002, According to the Council for Aid to Education.
On the most practical level, the annual fund is a component of a college’s operating expenses, says Bill Carey ’82, P’13, P’14, a Bates trustee who co-chairs the Bates Fund.
“And that’s why,” he says, “a statistic like alumni participation is so important — because we need to sustain the level of engagement in order to help Bates operate day to day. But it is also a demonstration of our commitment to Bates values.”
With record 55 percent participation in the 2011–12 Bates Fund (bolstered by a $500,000 challenge program) and 50 percent in 2012–13, Bates alumni continue to express their support through giving. This year the Bates Fund seeks 50 percent alumni participation and $6.75 million.
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