Building Upon the Rock Campaign a Success!

"Brothers, we have succeeded. " - Brother Jim Cherry, Campaign Co-Chairman

Together, with the leadership of our Campaign Co-Chairmen, Jim Cherry and Carl Berry, as well as the leadership of Foundation Chairman Bob Gingras, our Foundation Board of Directors and Staff, we are proud to say, that our campaign was a success!  In 2006, when our Foundation embarked on our first nationally coordinated capital campaign, our original goal was $10M over a 3 year period.  Within the first 2 years, we raised over $7 million dollars.  Then, at Grand Chapter in Austin in 2008, our Foundation Board of Directors and our Campaign Committee decided that we should increase our goal to $14M over a 4 year period.

However, we were not able forecast the current economic crisis that has affected us as a nation; yet, we still pushed through.  Amidst a higher unemployment rate, a declining economy, a national average of decreased charitable contributions, our foundation and our committee continued to move forward with our campaign effort despite these difficulties.

Although funding to support educational initiatives did not meet our original goal, our efforts in planned giving and chapter restricted accounts helped make our capital campaign a financial success. Thus, a large portion of the funds raised during the campaign came from planned gifts that will not mature for a long period of time and through our chapter designated accounts to support local housing and scholarship programs.  The other areas of funding focused on the continuation of the LEAD program, our Headquarters’ maintenance and operating needs of the Foundation. Even though our campaign was a financial success, chapter designated funding cannot be used to support the educational programs and needs of the fraternity. Unfortunately where the campaign did not meet its mark is in funding the educational needs of the fraternity; therefore, our support of those programs remains inadequate.

Brothers, while this is unfortunate, we must celebrate the fact that we raised over $12M for our Fraternity and Foundation, through our Building Upon the Rock Campaign!   Throughout the Campaign, our volunteers and staff met with over 3000 alumni and with over 1500 of those contributing to our campaign!  Although we were short on our secondary goal of $14 million dollars, we raised 20% more than our original goal and, most importantly, we wouldn’t have reached this amount if we hadn’t raised our original goal to $14M.  

Thank you for all of your support!  Congratulations, we ALL did it!