The Alumni Fund hopes to raise its annual goal to $20 million by the year 2000, an increase of almost 50 percent from this year's goal of $13.5 million.
Next year's goal will be raised to $15.5 million, up 11 percent from this year's goal.
"We have a long-term goal in the Alumni Fund to have sustainable growth over the next four years," Alumni Fund Director Jennifer Williams said.
Williams said a new committee has been formed to help with the efforts to meet the $15.5 million goal.
The committee is comprised of about 35 of Dartmouth's top volunteers, business leaders and community leaders, she said, including four College Trustees.
To meet their more challenging goal, the group "will focus more energy than in the past on about 1 percent of the population--about 500 people--who are targeted based on their capacity to give," Williams said.
Williams said that they were asking for large, four-year commitments to the fund.
"The gifts that have been coming in are four-year gifts anywhere from a couple of thousand dollars to individuals who have pledged $300,000 over four year period. We also ask the alumni to give a larger gift during their reunion years," Williams said.
The fundraising helps Dartmouth to maintain a certain flexibility in the budget and helps to balance the budget, Williams said.
The increased goal will help with financial aid students as well, she said.
An important change for alumni this year is the option to direct their gifts to scholarship.
"Beginning this year, the alumni can target gifts to the financial aid budget--what we call the current use scholarship," Williams explained.
"Dartmouth is well managed from a financial point of view, but some people find it more appealing to give to something more direct. The money goes to a general financial aid account, the current use scholarship," she said.
