The Office of Institutional Advancement has laid out a plan to raise the level of giving to the Annual Fund (AF) in fiscal year 2007. The series of measures include challenging more alumni and parents to get involved and retooling the fund’s Web pages.

“Annual Fund gifts provide critical operating dollars which directly benefit us, our students, and the programs at the College,” said Amy Bostock Laprey, director of annual giving. “They help underwrite financial aid, faculty salaries, library books, computer supplies, and the maintenance of our buildings and grounds.”

Last fiscal year, a total of 10,125 donors contributed $2,141,686 to the Annual Fund.

Laprey said her office would be challenging the anniversary classes (those ending in a ’2 or ’7) to double their support of the Annual Fund in recognition of their upcoming reunion in June 2007.

She added that alumni and parents will be challenged to get involved not only by making a gift to the fund but by volunteering. Opportunities could include assisting with the “Parents for Providence” program or during a phonation.

FY07 will be a time to build the Annual Fund and to educate alumni, parents, faculty, staff, and others about the importance of giving to it, said Laprey. She noted that gifts to the Annual Fund:

• transform students;
• enrich academics;
• enhance facilities; and
• advance the Catholic and Dominican tradition of the College.

“By supporting the Annual Fund,” she said, “alumni, parents, faculty, staff, and friends provide the immediate resources necessary for College President Father Brian Shanley to move forward with his vision for PC.”

Laprey said institutional advancement in FY07 would also encourage alumni to:

• take advantage of their employer’s (or, if applicable, their spouse’s employer’s) matching gift, which can double or triple their donation (for more on this, go to www.matchinggifts.com/providence);
• use the secure online giving Web site: www.givetopc.org; and
• appreciate that the Annual Fund is the foundation of the College in the hope that they will make it the cornerstone of their total philanthropy to Providence.