Word: e4d
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...E4D's logic would lead one to the conclusion that although the Class Gift itself is immoral, an effort to raise money for a Class of 1988 Bench would be apropos, since the money would not affect the College budget. But it is the very nature of the Senior Gift--the fact that the money goes directly into next year's operating budget to be spent on undergraduate programs--that makes its existence and our support for it so important...
Therefore, the so-called political nature of the Class Gift is not inherent but contrived, through the formation of E4D itself. E4D's assumption that one less dollar in the College operating fund corresponds to a like decrease in the endowment does not warrant the inverted conclusion that a senior's gift to the College is an explicit expression of approval for the endowment. Each senior's gift to Harvard-Radcliffe is important and valid in itself, as a direct contribution to the school, beyond the political concerns surrounding the endowment. This is the unifying quality of the Senior Gift...
FURTHERMORE, E4D's very supposition that decreased annual giving will automatically lead the administration to make up the difference through the endowment falls in the face of budgetary reality. Much as this scenario would excite any administrator, budgets simply do not work in this fashion. Each year the University determines the "payout"--that portion of the endowment's interest that will fund each school's budget. If the amount given to the College in a given year falls, it's not as if the endowment fairy is going to drop extra money on Dean Spence's desk to cover...
...WHILE E4D's leaders are imploring seniors to give only to E4D, I cannot help but wonder what its agents are thinking. Suffice it to say that there are many members of the E4D staff who are also soliciting for the Class Gift. They correctly see no barrier to working for or donating to both funds; they perceive the Class Gift to be an apolitical gift, not an endorsement of the endowment. They reserve their political statements for donations to E4D...
...plain fact that there are representatives of E4D that are working on the Senior Gift Campaign ought to repudiate any claims that donating to the two organizations is theoretically inconsistent. In fact, E4D's own solicitation literature, written in its year of inception, instructs its agents that "if a senior insists on contributing to the Senior Gift, then suggest that he or she contribute to both funds." E4D leaders ought to get their story straight...