The Wes­ley Society

BY CATHY ANDERSON

From left: Vice Pres­i­dent for Insti­tu­tional Advance­ment Chris Wood, Wes­ley Soci­ety Pres­i­dent and Trustee Bill Strick­land, Board of Trustees Chair Charles “Chip” Dashiell, Pres­i­dent John­ston, Stu­dent Gov­ern­ment Asso­ci­a­tion Pres­i­dent Tan­ner Polce and Direc­tor of the Wes­ley Soci­ety Cathy Ander­son dis­play the Wes­ley Soci­ety char­ter mem­bers plaque.

THE INAUGURAL YEAR of the Wes­ley Soci­ety has been an incred­i­ble and highly suc­cess­ful jour­ney. Since its incep­tion in fall 2009 when 62 donors qual­i­fied as char­ter mem­bers, Soci­ety mem­ber­ship had grown to 155 mem­bers at the end of the char­ter year on Decem­ber 31, 2010. This marks a 150% increase – a remark­able accom­plish­ment in today’s economy!

The Wes­ley Soci­ety is the College’s pre­mier annual giv­ing group whose mem­bers con­tribute a min­i­mum of $1,000 each year. Through gen­er­ous gifts to the annual Wes­ley Fund, Soci­ety mem­bers allow the Col­lege to pro­vide schol­ar­ships to stu­dents so that they can pur­sue their dreams. Donors also are wel­come to des­ig­nate their gift—to ath­letic pro­grams, the Stu­dent Lead­er­ship Retreat, the Alumni Asso­ci­a­tion, endowed schol­ar­ships and many more Wes­ley ini­tia­tives. Many Soci­ety mem­bers give mul­ti­ple gifts a year to ben­e­fit both the Wes­ley Fund and their favorite programs.

Since the Soci­ety launch, char­ter mem­bers have con­tributed a total of $670,050 to Wes­ley. In the last fis­cal year end­ing June 30, 2010, the funds con­tributed by Soci­ety mem­bers made up 40% of the finan­cial gifts, although rep­re­sent­ing only 8% of our donors.

Who are the mem­bers of the Wes­ley Soci­ety? 73% (113) of our mem­ber­ship are indi­vid­u­als or cou­ples, 20% (31) are orga­ni­za­tions and busi­nesses, and 7% (11) are foun­da­tions. 20 mem­bers are Wes­ley fac­ulty or staff and 16 are trustees. Wes­ley alumni make up about 46% of the indi­vid­ual Soci­ety mem­bers, with 9 cou­ples who are both alumni— col­lege sweet­hearts! The most gen­er­ous decade of alumni Soci­ety mem­bers is the ’60s with 21 donors, fol­lowed by the ’70s with 10 donors. The other decades are evenly rep­re­sented, all the way back to one donor from the Class of 1931.

From left: Har­vey ’64 and Jeanne Ken­ton, Coach Mike Drass and Sen­a­tor Colin Bonini ’91

Char­ter mem­bers come from 17 states, with pre­dictably, Delaware being the most common—home to 55% of our mem­bers (86 donors), fol­lowed by Penn­syl­va­nia, New Jer­sey, and Mary­land. Other states rep­re­sented are New York, Florida, Vir­ginia, Wash­ing­ton D.C., Maine, Illi­nois, Indi­ana, Ten­nessee, Arkansas, North Car­olina, New Hamp­shire and California.

To cul­mi­nate the char­ter year, the Col­lege hosted the first annual Wes­ley Soci­ety Gala. Held on the evening of Jan­u­ary 8 at The Out­look at Dun­can Cen­ter in Dover, close to 100 guests braved the rem­nants of a snowy morn­ing to attend. One high­light of the event was the par­tic­i­pa­tion of 12 out­stand­ing Wes­ley stu­dents who show­cased their accom­plish­ments with pre­sen­ta­tion posters sta­tioned through­out the recep­tion area. The pro­gram was emceed by Bill Strick­land, pres­i­dent of the Soci­ety, and included tes­ti­mo­ni­als from stu­dent Cas­san­dra Car­de­nas ’11 and Soci­ety mem­ber, Sen­a­tor Colin Bonini ’91. Pres­i­dent Bill John­ston con­cluded the pro­gram by unveil­ing a plaque list­ing all char­ter mem­bers, which will be promi­nently dis­played on campus.

Wes­ley Soci­ety has cel­e­brated a great begin­ning. The suc­cess of the Wes­ley Soci­ety speaks vol­umes about the Wes­ley fam­ily and the com­mon bond—the appre­ci­a­tion for Wesley’s crit­i­cal role in the lives of thou­sands of stu­dents over its long his­tory, and its impact for years to come. In order to ensure a strong future, the Col­lege encour­ages char­ter mem­bers to con­tinue their sup­port with renewal gifts annu­ally, and hopes that other con­trib­u­tors will con­sider join­ing the Soci­ety when mak­ing their 2011 gift!

To learn more, please con­tact Direc­tor of the Wes­ley Soci­ety Cathy Ander­son at andersca@wesley.edu or (302) 736‑2410.