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[/vc_column_text][mk_image src=”http://www.asortest.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/social-fb-icon4.jpg” image_width=”42″ image_height=”42″ hover=”false” custom_url=”https://www.facebook.com/ASOResearch/” margin_bottom=”0″][mk_image src=”http://www.asortest.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/social-tw-icon4.jpg” image_width=”42″ image_height=”42″ hover=”false” custom_url=”https://twitter.com/ASOResearch?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor” margin_bottom=”0″][mk_image src=”http://www.asortest.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/social-in-icon4.jpg” image_width=”42″ image_height=”42″ hover=”false” custom_url=”https://www.linkedin.com/company/american-schools-of-oriental-research” margin_bottom=”0″][mk_image src=”http://www.asortest.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/social-ml-icon_7.jpg” image_width=”42″ image_height=”42″ hover=”false” custom_url=”mailto:asor@bu.edu” margin_bottom=”0″][mk_image src=”http://www.asortest.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/blog-icon3.jpg” image_width=”42″ image_height=”42″ hover=”false” custom_url=”http://asorblog.org/” margin_bottom=”0″][/vc_column][vc_column border_color=”rgba(255,255,255,0.01)” width=”1/6″ css=”.vc_custom_1496683923840{margin-right: 20px !important;border-left-width: 2px !important;padding-right: 20px !important;padding-left: 20px !important;border-left-color: #99422f !important;}”][mk_divider divider_color=”rgba(255,255,255,0.01)” thickness=”1″ margin_top=”3″ margin_bottom=”3″][vc_column_text] [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column border_color=”rgba(170,170,170,0.01)” width=”1/2″ css=”.vc_custom_1487276122024{margin-right: 10px !important;margin-bottom: 30px !important;border-right-width: 2px !important;border-bottom-width: 2px !important;padding-top: 30px !important;padding-right: 30px !important;padding-left: 20px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;border-right-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;border-bottom-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;}”][vc_column_text responsive_align=”left”]WHY ALL GIFTS TO ASOR MATTER
[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]by Rob Oden
President Emeritus of Carleton College
Chair of ASOR’s Development Committee
In a fundraising campaign with an ambitious six- or seven-figure number, do small gifts matter? Why should we all stretch to give what we can even if a stretch gift for some of us is $25, $50, or $100? Do $25 or $50 gifts to ASOR’s Annual Fund matter?
There are two affirmative answers, the second less obvious. The first answer is that just as Benjamin Franklin argued for small savings on the grounds that compounding matters, small gifts do not compound of themselves but they combine with other gifts to yield compound result. If hundreds of us who care about ASOR and its mission each give small gifts, the total of those gifts will be significant and will play a significant role in our reaching our Foundational Campaign’s goal. Just note that last year almost a hundred “small” gifts meant that ASOR could award nine additional scholarships for students to go on digs. These gifts were certainly significant to those nine individuals!
Behind the second and perhaps less apparent reason why all gifts, whatever their size, matter lies a story. The story relates what actually happened, unscripted, unedited. Less than a decade ago, when I served still as the president of a fine liberal arts college, I found myself meeting, as was so often the case, with a potential major donor. After the usual introductory pleasantries, I began what I had planned to be an extensive and what I hoped would be a persuasive case for why the college needed this donor to give us a leadership gift. He had a chance, I argued, to transform need-based financial aid, to endow our need-based aid so generously that we could dramatically reduce, perhaps even eliminate, the necessity of our least wealthy students to take out student loans. From here, I moved to other endowment gift suggestions, including the gift of several endowed chairs at $3 million each or a very substantial endowment to enhance faculty salaries across the board.
Twenty minutes into my carefully rehearsed presentation, the donor politely lifted his hand—a gesture that I sensed meant he wished me to cease speaking. I stopped talking. “All that you have said,” the potential donor began, “is to the point and none of this is without merit. We do need to ensure that a first-rate liberal arts education is accessible to all talented students, whatever their families’ income level, and we do need properly to honor our faculty. But thoughts such as these are not going to move me to make a leadership gift. What I want to know and what might well motivate me is an answer to this question: ‘What percentage of our graduates give to the Annual Fund every year? There is no more accurate or reliable way to gauge the value our graduates place upon their education than their willingness to contribute each year—and I don’t care how large their annual gifts are.’”
Happily, I was able to answer this shrewd question with a compelling answer: the graduates of the college give to the Annual Fund in record-setting fashion. Later, I followed up my answer with documentary evidence, citing the percentage of alumni who had given to the Annual Fund in each of the past five years. The evidence led the potential donor to give a truly extraordinary gift, the second largest gift in a campaign whose goal was many hundreds of thousands of dollars.
So, and again, do all gifts matter? We have our answer: unprompted, first-hand evidence of the crucial importance of gifts to a fund-raising campaign. Experts often proclaim that the success of campaigns comes from a half a dozen key, leadership gifts. That assessment may not be incorrect. Yet, there is more to the story. The key to any campaign’s success is in fact the willingness of many who believe in an organization to give, because it is their willingness to give, at whatever level, that produces the leadership gifts that allow the campaign to succeed.
Please, and on behalf of all who value ASOR, give to ASOR’s Annual Fund or to any part of ASOR’s Foundational Campaign.
You may make a contribution by clicking here, or you may mail your contribution to ASOR, 656 Beacon Street, 5th Floor, Boston, MA 02215.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column border_color=”rgba(170,170,170,0.01)” width=”1/6″ css=”.vc_custom_1496684098866{margin-right: 5px !important;margin-bottom: 20px !important;border-right-width: 2px !important;border-bottom-width: 2px !important;padding-top: 30px !important;padding-right: 10px !important;padding-left: 10px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;border-right-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;border-bottom-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;}”][vc_wp_posts title=”BROWSE THE NEWS ARCHIVE” number=”4″][/vc_column][vc_column border_color=”rgba(170,170,170,0.01)” width=”1/6″ css=”.vc_custom_1496684008271{margin-right: 10px !important;margin-bottom: 30px !important;border-right-width: 2px !important;border-bottom-width: 2px !important;padding-top: 30px !important;padding-right: 20px !important;padding-left: 20px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;border-right-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;border-bottom-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;}”][vc_column_text]Tweets by ASOResearch [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
ASOR is pleased to announce Dr. Lynn Swartz Dodd of the University of Southern California (USC) as our new Secretary. The ASOR Board of Trustees voted unanimously at its fall meeting on November 18, 2012 to elect Dodd to a three-year term (2013-2015) as ASOR Secretary and member of the Executive Committee. Dodd succeeds Prof. James F. Strange of the University of South Florida who served as Secretary for three terms and more than ten years. Prof. Strange continues his service to ASOR as a member of the board of trustees (Class of 2015).
It’s almost time for March Fellowship Madness again, when we try to raise as many fellowship dollars as possible in thirty days. February 20th is the deadline for students and junior scholars to 
We once again plan to reach out to our fellow members through e-mail, 
Diverse! Engaging! Comprehensive! Exciting! Fantastic! Attendees have been overwhelmingly positive about ASOR’s 2012 Annual Meeting. A record 925 registrants came together from November 14-17 in Chicago at the Marriott Magnificent Mile Downtown, and once again, we enjoyed the largest program to date, with 463 papers in 90 sessions, 18 posters, 44 business meetings and special events, and 22 exhibitors. With newly-redesigned Program Books to guide them, attendees zoomed from session to session, paper to paper, and meeting to meeting! And, nestled in the heart of downtown Chicago, conference goers also enjoyed world-famous cultural attractions, restaurants, and shopping.
ASOR’s members continue to diversify our program by chairing a wide range of Member-Organized Sessions and Workshop Sessions focused on specific themes, archaeological techniques, or sites. This year’s new sessions included City of Gold: Archaeological
Maintaining this diverse and exciting program depends on ASOR’s members! We encourage you all to continue to develop Member-Organized Sessions and Workshops, to contribute to our ASOR-Sponsored Sessions by submitting papers on your current work, and to contact the Program Committee with any input and ideas you may have for improving the Academic Program of the Annual Meeting. The deadline for abstract submission is February 15, 2013 (or as late as March 1, 2013 with a $25 fee).
We hope you will join us to present your new research at our 2013 Annual Meeting to be held from November 20-23, in Baltimore at the Sheraton Baltimore City Center Hotel![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column border_color=”rgba(170,170,170,0.01)” width=”1/6″ css=”.vc_custom_1496684098866{margin-right: 5px !important;margin-bottom: 20px !important;border-right-width: 2px !important;border-bottom-width: 2px !important;padding-top: 30px !important;padding-right: 10px !important;padding-left: 10px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;border-right-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;border-bottom-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;}”][vc_wp_posts title=”BROWSE THE NEWS ARCHIVE” number=”4″][/vc_column][vc_column border_color=”rgba(170,170,170,0.01)” width=”1/6″ css=”.vc_custom_1496684008271{margin-right: 10px !important;margin-bottom: 30px !important;border-right-width: 2px !important;border-bottom-width: 2px !important;padding-top: 30px !important;padding-right: 20px !important;padding-left: 20px !important;background-color: #ffffff !important;border-right-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;border-bottom-color: rgba(227,228,228,0.75) !important;}”][vc_column_text]
The fall/winter season in Boston has been busy and productive. ASOR’s steady membership growth during 2012 continued, and a new record for total members was set in September. ASOR’s blog content increased in conjunction with two theme months that were wildly successful. September’s “Qumran Month,” and October’s “Cultural Heritage Month” themes drove the largest increase in online traffic since the Jesus Tomb controversy in March. Original posts for each theme—written by members and other scholars—were well received, and produced some lively discussion. The increased blog traffic, combined with almost 4,200 likes of our Facebook page, made the fall a great success for ASOR’s ongoing social media initiative. Intent on building on the momentum created by ASOR’s social media success and record membership numbers, a membership appeal to over 5,000 individuals was executed in early November. (See image at right.) The initial response to the appeal has been promising, and thanks to the hard work of everyone in Boston, ASOR set another record in December with 1,581 ASOR members!
The fall and winter have also seen changes that have improved customer service and increased the amount of information available to ASOR’s new and existing members. The 2013 membership enrollment form was redesigned to ease renewal and explain member benefits more clearly. Look for the new form in your renewal notices.
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