A great year through teamwork
As we move into another new year—as well as a new decade—each of us in the LAU community should take this opportunity to consider the tremendous amount of progress that we made in 2010. While we shouldn’t simply dwell on our success, and we can never become complacent with so much more to achieve, we really should take some time to recognize what our hard work and perseverance has yielded.
2010 was another exceptional year for our comprehensive campaign The Legacy and the Promise. At this point—a little more than two years after its public launching—we have raised nearly $57 million of our $65 million goal! In addition, we increased our number of donors by more than 17% last year, and continued to increase our rate of alumni giving as well as grow our number of alumni chapters worldwide. These outstanding statistics are a testament to the hard work of the LAU community at large, as well as some specific accomplishments by members of our Advancement division. But these numbers also validate the direction that our university is taking as a leader in higher education within Lebanon and throughout the Middle East.
It should also be noted that this past year we connected with more LAU alumni and friends and told our story to more people then we ever have before. From organized events to media outreach and communication, the hard work of people both within and outside of the Advancement division helped create some great developments in 2010. The university, as well as its administrators and faculty, continued to garner increased attention in the media around the world. We continued to produce compelling content for our award-winning LAU Magazine and continued to improve and grow our presence on the web. In 2010, we built a powerful new social network from the ground up that allows us to communicate with close to 30,000 people in ways that we never thought possible only a few years ago. LAU also continued to work hard at organizing its alumni worldwide by sponsoring events, lectures and other gathers, as well as by offering networking opportunities for graduates.
These are all positive developments and a clear reflection of the hard-working team that we have in place. But our drive to become a truly world-class institution has given us a strong mandate to continue to build on our success and to innovate and improve everything that we do.
Given our wonderful success last year I am truly excited to see what we will be able to achieve in 2011.
Happy New Year!
Sincerely,
Rich Rumsey
In this issue:
- Connectivity:
Bringing more people together - Fundraising:
Campaign rolls on through the year - Outreach:
Telling our story to the world - Talent Spotlight:
A minute with…Kate Baldwin
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