A Mistaken Ratio Redux
by J. Kevin Graffagnino, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society
Burlington Free Press op/ed column, September 22, 2007
In the summer of 1910, Vermont Academy in Saxtons River reprinted an editorial from the New York Examiner. Under the title “A Mistaken Ratio,” the Examiner noted that Isaac C. Wyman of Salem, Massachusetts, had just left Princeton University 10 million dollars and Dummer Academy 1,000 dollars. The newspaper had argued that Wyman should have reversed the sums, on the grounds that Princeton had all the money it needed while the nation’s elementary and secondary schools were desperately short of funds.
Ninety-seven years later, not much has changed. Aericans still tend to donate more generously to organizations and institutions that already have large endowments and financial reserves than to less prosperous schools, museums, charities, libraries, and other not-for-profits. Harvard, with an endowment somewhere around 34 billion dollars, raises more money every year than most of the rest of the colleges and universities in New England combined. The rich get richer, and the under-funded get more so.
The situation is the same here in Vermont. A newspaper headline that starts “20 Million Dollar Gift Goes to -----“ is more likely to end in “Middlebury College” (current endowment about 850 million dollars) than it is to announce a big donation to UVM, one of the state colleges, or St. Michaels, much less to St. Johnsbury Academy, Vermont Academy, or any other K-12 school in our state.
It’s time for Vermonters who care to change the ratio. Bragging rights at an Ivy League reunion may be nice, but a gift that merits only a brief mention in the alumni newsletter at Yale or Princeton can change the world for a Vermont college or non-profit striving to make a positive statewide impact. There are too many terrific Vermont organizations doing important work on shoestring budgets for us not to direct more of our personal and corporate philanthropy to them.·
The list of Green Mountain options for this generosity is as long as Lake Champlain. In education, give to UVM’s Center for Research on Vermont, create a scholarship fund at the Community College of Vermont, or ask the development offices at Lyndon, Johnson, Castleton, or VTC about supporting courses and collections with a Vermont focus. Talk to Peter Gilbert at the Vermont Humanities Council about VHC’s programs, to Alex Aldrich at the Vermont Arts Council about opportunities for strengthening the arts in our lives, or to Sybil McShane at the Vermont Department of Libraries about why Vermont’s libraries matter to all of us. Get acquainted with the Vermont Land Trust and the Green Mountain Club and see what your gift can do to enhance their good work.
I have to put in a plug here for Vermont’s heritage organizations. Our efforts are key to maintaining the traditions and history of our state for Vermonters and Vermonters at heart, but nearly all of us struggle to make ends meet. If you care about keeping the past alive as a vibrant aspect of what makes Vermont special, then get involved with the Bennington Museum, the Preservation Trust of Vermont, the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum, the state Division for Historic Preservation, the Sheldon Museum in Middlebury, or yes, even the Vermont Historical Society, and write a check for an amount you’d be proud to see in print.
Vermonters who want to improve things here at home need to act now on that good impulse. If we do, a century from now our successors can look back at our time as one in which we got the ratio right and made a real difference in the quality of life for our generation and those that followed.
