Securing Opportunities for Future Singers

Philanthropy

SECURING OPPORTUNITIES FOR FUTURE SINGERS

Diane (Dysert) and Mark Becken’s gift to Sweet Adelines International

Diane (Dysert) Becken has experienced a lot of Sweet Adelines life in her singing career. Currently a MemberAt-Large, she has sung with nine different Sweet Adelines choruses and a few quartets around the United States. Now, she and her husband, Mark, have included Sweet Adelines International in their estate planning in order to ensure that other singers can discover the many opportunities and deep friendships that kept her singing for many years.

Diane has always been a musician. In school, she was a selfprofessed “band geek” and sang in a community chorus with her mother while growing up in Indianapolis, Indiana (USA). In 1985, Diane had graduated from college and was dating a member of a men’s barbershop chorus. The local Sweet Adelines chorus met on the same night as his rehearsal, so she decided to give it a try.

“The first night I went, I was hooked!” she says. “The relationship with the guy didn’t last, but my relationship with barbershop has! I was voice-placed as a baritone, but the sound was too new to me and I had trouble holding my part, so I sang lead for the first year. After that, I’ve mostly been a baritone but have done some chorus and quartet stints as a tenor as well. My personality is a quartet lead, but I don’t have the pipes for it!”

Diane says one of the things she loves most about Sweet Adelines is how singers are able to “learn, grow, and play upon their strengths, whether musical or administrative.” She has served on management teams and in other administrative roles, given personal vocal instruction (PVIs), and even helped design a costume, but she says the visual aspect of performing is her passion.

“I absolutely love developing and coaching choreography, performing on front rows, helping others perfect their presentation, and being a part of the final product that pulls in an audience emotionally!” she says. “It’s this ability to find and build upon what is especially meaningful to an individual member that makes this organization particularly special to me.”

Through her barbershop community, Diane met her nonsinging husband, Mark. She said the friendships and connections of Sweet Adelines made a big difference in her life.

“Since I moved around so much for my career, SA was invaluable to me for creating instant connections to a new area,” she says. “I always knew that I would have a community who shared a common interest, would welcome me as a part of the SA family, and would help me get settled in my new area.”

Diane and Mark, who she says has been “hugely supportive” of her Sweet Adelines career, said the process of donating to SA was easy.

“It’s surprisingly easy to do,” said Diane. “You definitely don’t have to have a big estate to consider a gift like this, and it was important to us to leave our estate to organizations that have special meaning for us. Just make your wishes known. Ours are listed in our will, and the staff at SA have been given instructions about the area of the organization that we’d most like to support.”

As a nonprofit organization, Sweet Adelines International relies on a variety of revenue streams, including philanthropic donations, to maintain the programs, events, and services it provides to members. In the U.S., where Sweet Adelines was founded and is still headquartered, “nonprofit” is a designation given to several types of organizations that serve the public and are therefore exempt from paying taxes. All revenue is used to maintain the work of the organization. To find out more about donating to Sweet Adelines International, contact Director of Philanthropy Susan Smith at philanthropy@sweetadelines.com or visit www.sweetadelines.com/Give.