FUNDRAISING UPDATE
19–20 Dear ASIJ Community,
What a pleasure it is to join such a welcoming and supportive community! In early spring, as the pandemic began to spread around the globe and independent schools debated how best to respond to the crisis, many that lacked a real culture of philanthropy drew back from fundraising. While the costs of continuing to provide a first-class education rose, these schools, counterintuitively, decided to stop asking for help at the precise moment for which such funding is a necessity. But not ASIJ—and the ASIJ community responded vigorously, propelling the school to a COVID-19 response that has been emulated by other international schools around the world. As you’ll see in the following pages, thanks only to the generosity of ASIJ supporters, the number of donors to the Annual Fund increased by 23%, and grew the total raised in 2019–20 by 14%. These numbers show a community that understands that, pandemic or no pandemic, bold aspirations have a real cost, and that those costs cannot be met by tuition revenue alone. Thank you for the trust you place in the faculty and staff of ASIJ to not only provide the region’s finest education, but to follow a path of constant improvement. Your continuing and growing financial support gives ASIJ confidence to reach further each year, in our ongoing effort to achieve our aspirations. Thank you again for the warm welcome that I have received. I look forward to meeting everyone who shares the pride of ASIJ’s history and the promise of its future. In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to contact me directly using my contact info, below. Warm regards,
Clive Watkins Director of Institutional Advancement cwatkins@asij.ac.jp
THE AMBASSADOR \\ FALL 2020
33
