I recently saw a letter from a 90-year old brother from Austin, Texas, who reminded me why our work truly shapes the future.

Brother Hildebrand wrote, “You see, Sigma Chi has long been special to me. Wholly aside from providing basic principles which have guided my 90-year old life, it gave me my beloved wife whom I met enroute to her ascension to chapter sweetheart in 1950. Then it helped open the door to my first job out of college.”

 Brothers, as you know, the core of our Sigma Chi vision and purpose is the development of leaders — men like Brother Hildebrand who understand themselves, find others of like values and purpose, and, most important, take action for the greater good.

It is the accumulation of these actions that demonstrates the profound impact of our Fraternity. It is our work together, volunteering, advocating, giving or doing all of these things, that make this all possible.

As you know, we are now in the third year of joint Foundation and Fraternity strategic plan. We collectively have much to celebrate. The Foundation exists because of Sigma Chi and it is our role to support the leadership and scholarship needs of our members. I want to thank the officers and members of our General Fraternity and our Foundation for the leadership that is enabling our progress.

We are one Sigma Chi, one vision, one set of strategies, we are evolving the definition of Fraternity and we will succeed.

Our joint plan calls for aggressive action, now, to ensure we preserve the path for our unborn Sigma Chis. In recent years, thanks to generous and growing donor support, we have dramatically increased our annual investment in leadership development, social issue programming, and academic scholarships.

Next year, as we collectively work to launch the Sigma Chi Leadership Institute and gain accreditation for our incredible programming, we will further grow grant support by 17 percent and continue to make strategic investments in developing a comprehensive alumni engagement strategy, launching our new Life Loyal Sig giving program and further expanding our development and IT capabilities.

We are well on our way to being on par with the fiscal performance and efficiency of great universities and we are setting the pace in our Greek-letter world, receiving twice the annual contributions of the number two organization in the most recent analysis from Pennington & Company.

Know, also, that our success on behalf of Sigma Chi ultimately rests on our brothers’ willingness to choose to support Sigma Chi — an active decision made with a clear understanding of what we are doing today, why that matters, what impact their gift will create and that those who are carrying the heavy water — you — endorse the work.

Sigma Chi has never needed you more than today.

Ashley Woods, EAST TENNESSEE 2000

Sigma Chi Foundation President & CEO