 HBC.JS Radio, welcome back. I'm your host, Jared Carter. Today, a very special conversation with two sisters who are intimately connected with the historic fundraising campaign out of Howard University just in the last few recent months. A $1 million campaign fostered and collected by the class of 1969, the 50th anniversary class, who celebrated that milestone at this year's commencement and celebrated with a substantial $1 million gift. And today, we are joined by Mrs. Edith Jones. She is the chair of the class of 1969's Reunion Initiative and Ms. Sharon Strange-Lewis, the director of Alumni Relations at Howard University. Sisters, I appreciate your time today. Well, thank you. Thank you for having us. Well, thank you. Thank you for having us. Ms. Edith, we're going to start with you because you're the sister with the money. Talk about how your class one has managed to have such cohesion over the years that you guys can come together to make a substantial and historic gift like this for Howard. Well, I guess I'd have to say that it probably has a lot to do with the time that we spent at Howard, which was the end of the 1960s and the fact that we probably experienced some of the initiating campus experiences, agitating, initiating activities together at the university that pulled us together as a class, but also helped us in developing a strong commitment to Howard University. Many of the folks who served on our reunion committee were students that we occupied the administration building with back in 1967. Were many of the same students that we experienced the turbulence of Martin Luther King's assassination, the riots there in D.C., and through those experiences, we built a cohesiveness that carried us to this point 50 years later. We were committed to Howard then and we remain committed and the class members that formed that committee were largely student activists, student leaders, and felt that this was the worthy cause for us to come together on 1250th anniversary. Is this something that the classmates came up with or was it working in tandem with the university's alumni relations office? Well, I guess it was. In fact, the reunion activity was spurred at our 45th anniversary. We looked around. We weren't very much pleased with the turnout then and we said we've got to do better. We can do better and we kicked around the idea five years ago about trying to raise a million dollars for our 50th anniversary. Subsequently, we formed a committee, worked with the university to work out an agreement and began encouraging our classmates to give for our 50th anniversary. It wasn't so much tension with the university these years past. We had tension back in 1967 that we all surpassed. We're going to get into a conversation about that later because I love how our students stayed with tension against the university but come back and love on it in a big way. Ms. Sharon, when you got the call and the notice from the 50th anniversary class that they were going to do this gift, what does that set in motion from an institutional perspective about support and messaging and branding and helping to aid the class and getting the word out about that initiative? Well, it made us realize that we really had to gear up and support this class because this class meant business and we wanted to make sure that we were going to support them in a very meaningful way and that we were very excited about the concept that they wanted to raise a million dollars for scholarship funds for future bison. So we were all on board and we made sure that we were there every step of the way to supply every need that they had and to help them along the way to reaching their goal. What does that support look like? So we know that a class comes in and they have a goal of here's how much money we want to raise and here's what we want to give it to. Are there certain areas of education, meaning like unrestricted versus restricted funding, the way that the gifts need to come in? Talk about that process of walking with the class through the goal or the objective of meeting this goal and having it to support the university in a way that fulfills the mission but also meets the wishes of the actual donors. Exactly. So in the spirit of full transparency, I was not a part of the Alumni Relations Department when this class came together five years ago to decide that they wanted to reach that goal. When I came, the wills were very much in motion and to be very honest, they did all the work. Ms. Jones is a very avid fundraiser and she's worked a nonprofit for many years. So she knew exactly what to do in order to rally up the troops in order to get everyone in gear and we were just there to really provide, you know, just the parameters in which the gifts were raised. So I really can't take credit for what they did. They really did the majority of the work on their own. We were here to really provide more support and be cheerleaders for them and to make sure that we were counting the coins as they came in, to make sure that they knew where they were every step of the way to reaching their goal. So what's the secret? Because obviously, you know, HBCUs are growing in our aggressiveness about philanthropy towards the institution, in support of students, in support of capacity building. But what were the things that you found were most successful in getting your classmates kicked into gear and signing those checks? I think one of the main things that helped us was starting early. When we made that decision at our 45th anniversary to try to raise a million dollars for the university, we began collecting money then. We set up a fund with the university in the endowed fund to allow people to give early and give often. Some people made monthly contributions over the four-year period of time that the fund had been in operation. Some people had already been giving to the university, and I think we helped them to increase their giving. But starting early was certainly a major key in helping us to move forward. I think the other thing that helped Sharon mention is that I've got background in non-profits and working with volunteers. And so for me, I understood that some people would be more active than others, and some people had more time to give than others. So we just accepted whatever people could give in terms of time and contacting classmates when they could give it. And I think that helped too. I kind of called myself the glue. I made sure I kept after people to make those calls, contact classmates, and encourage folks to give. But the consistency, I think, really helped us. Some committees sometimes kind of fade in and fade out and drop off, but we had a core group who stuck with it for the five years and made sure that we were successful in the end. So I think that experience working with volunteers was helpful, as well, starting early and then having the university support in terms of tracking the money, giving us reports, letting us know who had given so we could determine who we needed to contact. Ms. Sharon, and what does a gift like this mean in terms of your efforts to reach other classes, to reach younger alumni, to work with foundations and companies when you can say, hey, look, our 50th anniversary class gave us a million dollars. What kind of a boost does that give to your outreach efforts to other entities and other organizations? Well, what it has done for other alums and other classes is that it has really opened the doors to think broader, to think wider and to think of what your legacy is going to be for Howard University. This gift has really set the bar very high for our other classes to follow. And I can tell you, as a member of the class of celebrating our 35th anniversary, when the 50th class presented that award, my classmates and I looked at each other and we were like, oh, my goodness, we really have to set the bar even higher than that because by the time our 50th arises, then a million is going to be nothing. So it has really made everyone think and recalculate what they're doing and what their passion financially is to gift to Amamada. So people are talking. It has really raised the energy in our giving to our alums and it has made other organizations look at us and say, okay, if they're willing to put in the effort to do that for their university, then we can definitely take another look at what we can do to support the university as well. So I think it has just been a great start for many wonderful things that will happen for the university. What's the, Ms. Sharon, what's the next step for you guys? You've had a couple of historic gifts in recent years, not just with the 50th anniversary class, but you've had a husband and wife donating more than a million dollars to the university. Several other large gifts that have come in. What's the next goal or the next metric of success for Howard? Is it getting a number of classes engaged? Is it a number in mind? Is it a targeted initiative for the funding? Where is the institution looking with this gift as a catalyst for what's to come? Well, that's a very good question. We just want to continue to build upon what the class of 1969 has given us this in May. And we want other classes to continue with that tradition, with their 50th anniversary gift. We just want to continue to plant the seed of philanthropy amongst our alumni population, and also to really reach back into the students to really let them know what philanthropy is all about, and that we have generations of Howard alumni who are really, really careful and methodical about how they give back to the university, because they want the legacy of Howard University to continue long after they graduate. And so we want to plant that seed of philanthropy amongst our students when they first start at the university so that we can have a cycle of giving from day one into that continues. Now, for both of you, just to finish out, Ms. Edith Amonsharing, can you both share how folks who are listening, who didn't get in gear with this million-dollar gift, one, how they can give to the class of 69, and then two, how can they give at large to Howard University for folks who may not have even attended Howard, what are some of the ways that we can reach into the Mecca and make sure that we're supporting? Well, members of the class of 1969 have until June 30th to make their gift to the class, and they know how to do that. Members of the class can reach out to any member of the Office of Development and Alumni Relations, or they can reach out to their infamous reunion class chair, Ms. Edith Jones, and make that contribution. And other alums can also visit us at our website at how.edu, and they can make their gift there. So we have online ways to make gifts and they can send their gifts in as well through the mail, but we are here to receive any gift that any alum or anyone would love to give to the university.