What your Giving Society level gift can do

Cornell Annual Fund gifts are unrestricted, current-use funds that the Provost, Deans and Directors direct to where need is the greatest. These gifts support financial assistance for students, faculty recruitment and hiring, program development, and the infrastructure of the University in a variety of ways each year. Gifts made to the Cornell Annual Fund at one of the giving society levels provide essential support each year and help keep Cornell's educational and cultural offerings as diverse as its student body.

President's Circle ($25,000 and up)

President's Circle members give gifts of $25,000 and above and are truly Cornell's philanthropic leaders. Annual Fund gifts at the President's Circle level can support lab renovations, like those done in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior's laboratory, to ensure Cornell continues to offer state-of-the-art research facilities for students and faculty. When Cornell was recruiting Joe Fetcho, a leading professor and researcher in Neurobiology and Behavior, it became the perfect opportunity to update the department's research lab.

Cornell Annual Fund gifts not only helped create imaging rooms that allow visualization of nerve cells in intact, living animals and physiological stations with the specialized equipment needed to record from individual nerve cells in the brain or spinal cord, but also, through the lab renovation, helped secure Professor Fetcho's place here at Cornell-a tremendous opportunity for students to work with another top-notch researcher and to further interdisciplinary study at Cornell.

Dean's Circle ($10,000 to $24,999)

Gifts at the Dean's Circle level can help keep Cornell on the cutting edge of research and discovery. New faculty are at the heart of the promise of education for undergraduate and graduate students-and for significant advances is science, which means continuing to recruit faculty members of the highest caliber is one of Cornell's highest priorities.

Gifts to the Cornell Annual Fund for Engineering helped recruit and support Professor Matthew P. DeLisa in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.  This past year, Professor DeLisa won the 2005 Beckman Young Investigators Award for his research on "A New Approach to Synthesis and Folding of Modular Proteins via Ribosome Reprogramming."  The Beckman Young Investigator (BYI) Program is intended to provide research support to the most promising young faculty members in the early stages of academic careers in the chemical and life sciences; projects included in the program should show promise for contributing to significant advances and innovative departures in research that cuts across traditional boundaries of scientific disciplines.

Tower Club ($5,000 to $9,999)

Founded in 1961, the Tower Club recognizes the leadership of donors giving between $5,000 and $9,999. Inspired by the phrase "far above Cayuga's waters," Tower Club members inspire Cornell to remain "far above." Annual Fund gifts at this level help keep Cornell competitive in science and the arts, in new technology, and help us maintain the excellence of our faculty and staff.

Gifts at the Tower Club level can provide seed funding for new programs across the campus. Even when there is a clearly defined need, funding the start-up of a new program can be challenging and Annual Fund gifts are utilized to bridge the budgetary gap between conception and implementation of a new program. One recent example is the Cornell Alumni-Student Mentoring Program, which provides a much-needed support system to help underrepresented minority students succeed at Cornell. Now, a year later, the Mentoring Program is successfully pairing alumni and students to teach students about coping with, and succeeding in, life at Cornell and beyond. Cornell Annual Fund gifts helped make this network possible.

Quadrangle Club ($1,000 to $4,999)

Established in 1978, the Quadrangle Club recognizes alumni and friends supporting Cornell at the $1,000 level.

Gifts to the Annual Fund at the Quadrangle Club level can help the University foster research programs, like the International Program in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), which give faculty and students opportunities to research solutions to far-reaching global issues. Cornell Annual Fund gifts help sponsor international scholar group visits through the International Program, which continues the involvement of CALS faculty and students in international teaching and research activities, such as Bridging the Rift, Collaborative Crops Research Program, and the Institute for Genomic Diversity, that look to address the vital global issues generated at the nexus of population, agriculture, and the environment.

Charter Society ($500 to $999)

The Charter Society, established in 1972, takes its name from Ezra Cornell's charter gift of $500,000 to found Cornell. Charter Society gifts enable Cornell to admit the best students, regardless of their finances, and prepare them for a rapidly changing world. Generous private support from giving society members helps Cornell continue to be a world-class university.

Gifts at the Charter Society level can supplement the budgets of intercollegiate student organizations, like the nationally ranked Cornell Forensics Society, which serve to enhance the breadth of the Cornell experience. Cornell Annual Fund gifts have helped fund travel for Forensics Society members to speech and debate competitions that the self-supporting organization would normally not have the budget to attend. As a program that is open to all Cornell undergraduates and provides equal opportunity to all students, Cornell Annual Fund gifts directed to the Cornell Forensics Society help enrich students' learning experiences through the diversity of the group's members and its activities.

Ivy Society ($250 to $499)

Established in 1997, the Ivy Society is the first Cornell giving club created specifically for young alumni. All young alumni within ten years of their graduation (including those in their 10th reunion year) who make an annual gift of $250 or more are recognized as members. Members of the Ivy Society have taken the lead among their generation to maintain Cornell's tradition of academic excellence, research, and public service.

Gifts at the Ivy Society level can help improve the quality of campus life for Cornell students, like those used for the legal online music initiative. With the debate over the legality of downloading music escalating on campuses all over the country, the Cornell Student Assembly began, in spring 2003, to investigate legal ways for Cornell students to obtain music online. The Student Assembly selected Napster as a solution that satisfied students' needs, and Cornell signed a contract with Napster for a 2004-05 academic year trial. This past year, approximately 11,000 students subscribed to the service, and on any given day between 3,000-4,000 students downloaded and swapped music from Napster-all free of charge. Due to a few corporate sponsors and Cornell Annual Fund gifts to Student and Academic Services, students could download an unlimited number of songs, listen to web-based radio stations, browse each other's collections, and see recommendations from each other as well as Billboard and Napster. The Napster pilot program was a resounding success and will be offered to students again next year.

Cayuga Society (Planned Gift)

When you make a planned gift to Cornell, you will be invited to become a member of the Cayuga Society. This society recognizes generous donors who have established charitable annuities, life income agreements, bequest intentions, or other planned gifts to benefit Cornell University. Click here to visit the Office of Gift Planning.

These examples are just one of the many exciting ways Cornell Annual Fund gifts are used each year. Your giving society gift could help support student projects, like the legal online music initiative, provide supplemental scholarship funds to a needy student to help support Cornell's need-blind admissions policy or help recruit a top-notch faculty member who might otherwise go to another, better funded, program elsewhere. The possibilities are endless. Open the door.

For more information

If you have comments or questions about the Quadrangle Club or Charter Society, contact cornell_fund@cornell.edu by e-mail or call 1.800.279.3099. For information on the Ivy Society, please send inquiries to cornell_fund@cornell.edu or call 607.254.6140, See How to Make a Gift for details about different ways to give.