Why Give Now?

Generous financial support from alumni has been a constant benefit to Chi Phi over the decades, and we are deeply grateful to brothers who have contributed in this way. However, the last concentrated campaign was in 1936, when an alumni campaign committee and houseboy William "Rastus" Rice succeeded in raising $15,000 to save the Chapter House from foreclosure. In 2008-2009, we anticipate working together to raise at least 1.5 million dollars in gifts and multi-year pledges, allowing The Beta Foundation to complete the renovation work it has begun while giving Beta an appropriate financial reserve to carry it into the future.

Unlike the 1936 campaign, no imminent threat looms and the Beta Chapter is currently secure. Our operating finances are healthy and our financial reserves are under professional management services. Urgent safety and quality-of-life renovations to the Chapter House have been completed recently. Chi Phi has successfully weathered the change in MIT policy on freshman housing, and our relationship with the Institute and our Back Bay neighborhood is strong. The board of The Beta Foundation has been working with the active brothers to develop new academic, enrichment, and leadership programs to help Chi Phi better compete for new members, and to prepare brothers to succeed at MIT and beyond.

But there is more that should be done, making this an opportune moment to prepare for the future. Architectural, functional, and aesthetic renovations to the Chapter House at 32 Hereford Street, a historic mansion, need to continue. Innovative programs for today’s actives are in the planning stages. Most importantly, enlarging the financial reserve will ensure our independence by allowing us to be extremely proactive in our financial planning. We can grow our resources to meet future challenges and opportunities, including paying down our $600,000 loan from MIT when it is most advantageous for us to do so.

The success of this campaign will put the Chapter on a thriving financial footing for the century to come by building a reserve dedicated to supporting new programs and completing the remaining physical projects. Our success will not only differentiate Chi Phi from other fraternities at MIT, but will become a model for fraternal intergenerational collaboration. Most importantly, our generous support now will ensure opportunities for generation upon generation of Brotherhood into the future.

But Why a "Campaign" to Ask for My Support?

• A campaign allows us the economies of a concentrated effort during a limited span of time. Efforts like setting up accounts for charitable donations, outreach to all of our alumni, recordkeeping of pledges, creating information for potential donors, and developing forms of recognition for donors are more efficiently managed as part of a dedicated campaign.

• A campaign gives us a focused but limited context for asking for significant support. Beta is not, as a rule and in comparison with other fraternities, aggressive about raising funds from alumni. We would like to continue in that tradition by doing it all at once.

• A campaign will help us generate a critical mass of support, intensifyiing the potential benefits by gathering a great amount of financial support at once. A fraternity with a large actual financial reserve (rather than the "virtual reserve" of generous alumni prepared to give for emergency situations) has more influence with MIT's administration, more agility in responding to challenges and opportunities as they arise, and indeed, more total resources thanks to earned interest.