We made it through the year!  It was not easy, but with your support this year was saved from near disaster.

We hope you are ok!  We saw the writing on the wall early on last year and made some drastic cuts and tried to hold the line on spending at every level as best we could.  We made it but not without your help.

The 2008-2009 year could have been an absolute disaster.  While the first quarter of the year started out strong it was clear early on that the Annual Fund was in trouble and we played catch-up the remainder of the year.   

At first glance of this year’s production report you will notice that we actually had a pretty good year and overall fundraising activities were up 9% over 2008.  Leading the way were gift commitments, (pledges on campaigns or bequests) which were up 64%.  A copy of the production report can be found at http://www.deltfoundation.org/2009productionreport.pdf.

The Annual Fund made a remarkable come back from at one point being down almost 35%.  Direct mail and the Telefund took it the hardest and were both down 11.7% and 11.4% respectively.  Our new Parents Club of donors, while small, showed the largest percentage increase with 27%.

The real success was in the Order of the C—.  You comprise 38% of gifts to the Annual Fund at over $265,000 from 152 men and you held strong.  Many of you made a second gift when asked and others took advantage of our new gift-in program where you gave a gift in one of your friends’ names.

As such the Annual Fund fought back from being down last October by 35% to finishing the year only down 6% and having our second best year ever for Annual Fund donations.

When you look at the Production Report, it appears that income through gifts looks very good, up 9% overall.  Don’t be deceived. A good portion of our increase was in pledges and while this is always a good indicator of future income - you cannot spend pledges.   Overall cash coming into the Foundation from gifts was down 44%.  This was the reason for all of our strategic planning work at the New York Meeting.  Cash flow remains tight.

In a year where the news was rarely good the Order of The C— was a true champion.  This fall is already off to a good start, and Order of The C—, Chairman, Russell Douglass, Texas, 1980, already has plans in the works to help grow our band of brothers even further.