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BY DENNIS BROOKS, P.ENG., P.GEOPH.
Education Foundation Columnist
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Editor's Note: The APEGGA Education Foundation,
which is separate and distinct from APEGGA, serves the professions
by supporting the education and development of engineers,
geologists and geophysicists, as well as those who might enter
the three professions. It assembles and manages funds, builds
endowments and encourages donations. The foundation distributes
funds for scholarships and awards, and in support of special
projects.
The June issue of The PEGG arrived today, and earlier in the
week I was catching up on reports of the APEGGA Annual General
Meeting, Annual Conference and Summit Awards®. The themes
are of new visions, addition of new members, and of new energy.
When I look out the windows into our garden I see the same
thing!
On March 19, your foundation held its annual general meeting
and now has a new president in Norman Orr, P.Eng., who has
a long history of service with APEGGA. The past year was very
successful in increasing voluntary donations to $69,161 (from
$31,782 in 2001) and total assets to $363,421 (from $257,764
in 2001).
The new board meets for the first time the week of June 23.
Donation Campaign
The board had already decided in January to renew the campaign
with life members begun last year, which was so successful
in increasing voluntary donations. The campaign with 35th
anniversary members was not as successful and the approach
there will be revisited.
The foundation has adopted a new record keeping system, because
the old one was no longer meeting our needs. I obtained some
data from this and am happy to report that donations for the
year to June 18 are $53,610, compared with $17,756 last year.
This huge increase may be a bit misleading since some Summit
AwardsÒ donations are included in those periods as
well as voluntary donations. However, there does appear to
be an increase and I will be checking in future months to
make more valid comparisons.
The board approved a new Millennium Scholarship last year
and will be looking at the details of how scholarships will
be increased using our new revenues.
Rejuvenation
When I feel the need for some renewal, I look back into a
tabloid issued by the Canadian Centre for Philanthropy, the
January 2001 issue. It has some excellent material on fundraising.
I'd like to share some of that with you.
It says that surveys show that donors become dissatisfied
with slow gift acknowledgement and lack of meaningful information
about their gifts at work. However, they stop giving to a
charity when there is mismanagement of funds, failure of the
charity to fulfill its mandate or negative media attention.
The centre also points out that the challenge is not so much
getting people to give as it is keeping donors after they
have made that first commitment. Fifty per cent of donors
do not renew their initial gifts and by the fifth year almost
90 per cent have stopped giving! "Meaningful information
on their gifts at work is the key to donors' repeat and increased
giving."
These are the challenges for our new board.
Although this is not discussed in the Canadian Centre for
Philanthropy articles, I sense that charities go through growth
stages. I think ours has just "got off the ground."
We are about to enter the stage where we are seen as a viable,
long-term, charity. I think that only then will corporations
and major donors come forward with significant gifts.
I have not yet seen any good material on how charities can
attempt to grow from one stage to the next. I'd welcome any
input.
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