Wednesday, March 4, 2009

The Alumni Fund

Many, many moons ago, I worked for the Middlebury Alumni Fund while I was a student at said college. I made many calls, plead for a great deal of money and ended up calling some of my friends who had graduated ahead of me.

KT got one of these calls yesterday and she quickly wrote me an email wishing it had been a call from me. So I put together what I thought would be a good script in order to get a pledge out my fellow Alums.

It is as follows:

KT, I'm calling you today on behalf of Middlebury. You remember Middlebury, right? We educated you, housed you and fed you well for the four years you attended.

Well, I hate to tell you this, but Middlebury is in a bit of a pickle these days. Our endowment is not quite as large as some other private colleges. Plus, with the downturn in the economy, we are now facing a bit of a shortfall with our budget for the next eleven years.

We know you are in a position to donate at least $25 dollars to Middlebury this year. We have your financial records for the past ten years, your tax records for the past five years and your police records for the past four years. You really are not in a position to say no to a $50 dollar donation but we don't want you to feel like we are trying to extort money from you. That little incident that occurred in Pittsburgh two years ago really is worth at least a $75 dollar donation, especially if you don't want your family and best college friends to find out. I mean, really, getting busted plagiarizing on your report for why cock fighting really isn't an inhumane treatment of animals is a little over the top, don't you think?

Don't forget that your donation goes a long way for current students at Middlebury. They will continue to be coddled, graded on a curve, and given close in parking spaces in order to cut down on the long commute from their dorms to the student fitness center. These are all incredible reasons to donate $100 this year. Not to mention that your donation of $150 will help the school continue to place quite high in national rankings due to graduate satisfaction.

Shall we go ahead and ring up a $200 donation on your credit card tonight? We have that number too, you should know.

Did I mention we need to build a new practice rink for our National Championship hockey teams? KT, your name would go quite nicely over the door to the rink. That little international incident you had in Finland would be all but forgotten should this become the KT Ice Arena.

Let's get that donation going.

Seth
Middlebury College
98.5

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