Alumni Giving

Thank you for helping to support the future of the Young Ambassadors! The 40th Anniversay fund-raising drive is now over, but you can still make a donation to the YA's by following this link to give.byu.edu.

Please read the message below from Eric McAllister, YA fundraising chairman.

March 22, 2010

Dear YA alumni, many thanks to so many of you who have contributed to the YAs!!

I am excited to provide you all with a summary of our fundraising efforts the past 30 days – here are some details:

- Almost 200 YA alumni gave donations to the YAs – providing gifts of all sizes, a number of which were significant gift amounts

- Over 5 YA groups have fully funded their group plaques by collectively contributing to the $1,000 target

- In just 30 days, your collective contributions totaled … drumroll please … $94,300!! That is an average of over $3,000 a day and the highest contribution activity of any organization at BYU in the first quarter of this year!!

- With the generous match contributions of Josh/Cherie James, the above fundraising amount will grow to be a significant contribution to the YAs and will make a huge impact on current and future YA operations

Congratulations and thank you all for your remarkable generosity in contributing to the Young Ambassadors! What an amazing show of support for the Young Ambassadors! And a special thanks to Josh and Cherie James for providing an incredible match incentive to significantly increase the impact of our collective donations!

For all YA group presidents: we still have over 35 YA groups that have more fundraising to do in order to meet the $1,000 donation amount per group in order to have the plaque made for your group. We appreciate your continued efforts to reach out to your group members and encourage them to donate. Our goal is to have all 40 years of YA groups with plaques hanged on the “YA Wall of Fame” at Richards Building by the end of 2010!!

For all YAs, while we have concluded the 30-day fundraising effort, our fundraising efforts continue and we appreciate your continued donations to the YAs. We hope that you will all consider making donations to the YAs a consistent and ongoing part of your giving efforts in the future.

Thanks again, and we look forward to your continued support of the YAs for many years to come!

Best,

Eric

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An earlier message from Randy Boothe:

Feb. 16, 2010

Dear Young Ambassador Alumni:

We have just concluded our 40th Anniversary Reunion here in Provo – what a wonderful weekend!! We had our largest turnout ever with hundreds of former YA alumni attending the various reunion events from Thursday, February 11 through Sunday, February 14. Here are some quick highlights of our reunion weekend:

- We had 78 former YA alumni participate in our de Jong Concert Hall performances which paid tribute to the YA groups over the past 40 years

- Having our alumni return to perform with the current group created tremendous excitement in the press and community – our de Jong shows set a record for the highest attendance ever for any YA performance in the de Jong!

- We enjoyed a wonderful International Buffet and YA Alumni Showcase Concert – with alumni talent providing many fantastic performances on Saturday night.

- We concluded our reunion with a YA fireside at the LDS Conference Center, which will be broadcast on BYU Television over the coming months and years; Raj Kumar, who many of you have heard about, flew in from Toronto to provide an inspirational message at the fireside on his conversion to the church after a Young Ambassador performance in Chandigarh, India in 1982.

After this busy weekend, my body is tired but my heart is full – thank you so much for participating in these events!! I was touched again and again as I talked with so many of you, caught up with you on what’s going on in your lives, and watched you share your incredible talents. While I was grateful to see so many alumni return for this reunion, for those of you who were unable to attend these events please know that each of you were missed by me and your fellow alumni! With over 1,200 YA alumni and growing each year, I have a personal desire and commitment to expand our efforts to stay actively connected with every YA alumni member. Dave and Debbie Bromley – our new YA Alumni Co-chairs – will be soon announcing new ways for YA alumni to stay connected via the new YA alumni site and other fun events and activities. Our goal is to have ALL YA alumni attend our next major reunion – the 45th Anniversary Reunion – in February 2015!

I am so excited about the kick-off of our YA charitable giving efforts at the reunion. As I mentioned at the banquet, after 40 years of touching the lives of millions of people around the world, the Young Ambassadors program at BYU is at a significant crossroads. We have been extremely blessed the past 40 years to be able to find the funding to travel the world and share gospel values through the performing arts. However, we now face funding challenges like we have never encountered before. The costs of continuing to run this program are becoming prohibitive, and we cannot continue to ask the current YA members to bear the brunt of these cost burdens – it is already a burden too heavy for many. That’s where you come in: as alumni and “lifetime members” of the Young Ambassadors. I would like to ask you to give charitably to help sustain the Young Ambassador program for another 40 years. We have all been so blessed by this program – many in your performance careers and endeavors and others in ways not related to music but to your lives and careers.

As we announced last weekend, Josh James – CEO and Co-Founder of Omniture and former YA member in the mid-1990’s, has graciously offered to sponsor a YA donation-matching program for any alumni who provide a charitable contribution to the YAs. However, this is no ordinary gift-matching effort – like a 1-for-1 match. For those who know Josh, he NEVER does anything ordinary – Josh and his wife, Cherie, have expressed a desire to match any contributions by YAs on a 3-for-1 basis!! Yes, that’s right. If you give a charitable donation over the next 30 days – between today and March 15th – Josh will match that gift with a donation of 3 times its value, making your donation equivalent to a 4 times the donation!! You will soon see an email from Eric McAllister – who is leading our YA Alumni charitable giving efforts – with details on how you participate in the above fundraising effort over the next 30 days, and also how you can get involved in other charitable giving activities.

My life has been greatly blessed and touched by getting to know each of you. I love you. I love the Young Ambassador program. My remaining time with the YA program at BYU is unfortunately limited. I hope to be able to leave a program that has the support and funding to last many more years. In conclusion, I would like to make a personal request of you to please “pay it forward” – give generously to help tomorrow’s Young Ambassadors have the same wonderful opportunities you were blessed with in past years. Thank you and we look forward to seeing you all at the next YA reunion in February 2015!

Love,

Randy

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Donate now at http://give.byu.edu/ya.

For more information, here's a letter from Eric McCallister, in charge of the fundraising effort.

* * * * * * * * * *

Feb. 16, 2010

Dear YA Alumni,

I am so excited to work together with you in our YA alumni charitable giving efforts over the next 30 days and beyond!

As Randy mentioned in his email below, we have an incredible giving opportunity over the next 30 days with Josh James’ generous offer to match any YA charitable donation via a 3-for-1 match. For those who gave donations at the reunion in response to our kick-off announcement – and there have been many of you already – two words: THANK YOU!! For the rest of our alumni, here are the details you need to participate in this effort:

- Online/Credit Card Donations: If you wish to donate online via credit card, ALL you need to do is click the following link and you can make a very quick/easy donation to the Young Ambassadors Fund: http://give.byu.edu/ya. You can also find this link on our YA Alumni website: www.yaalumni.org – see the yellow tab at the top entitled “Alumni Giving”

- Cash/Check Donations: If you wish to donate via cash or a live check, the information highlighted below is ALL the information you need

- Reminder: ANY donation you make by March 15th will be matched by Josh/Cherie James on a 3X1 basis!! So for example, if you give a donation of $100, this donation will be matched on a 3X1 basis for an amount of $300, which means your $100 donation will be equivalent to a total donation of $400.

- Special Gifts With Certain Donations – Please Note:

o If you make a minimum donation of $50, you will receive a special gift – a commemorative piece of the Young Ambassadors rehearsal floor from the Knight Mangum Building (KMB)!

o If you make a minimum donation of $500, this commemorative piece will be personalized in your name!

o We will track donations via the above website and send out these gifts to any whose donations meet the above.

- If you have any questions about giving a charitable donation to the Young Ambassadors, please contact Varden Hadfield with BYU YA alumni giving at 801-422-1133 or via email hadfield@byu.edu for details. You can also contact me at makarisuta@hotmail.com.

- Remember: http://give.byu.edu/ya.

Thank you all for your generous contributions to the BYU Young Ambassador Fund! These donations will enable the YAs to continue blessing the lives of so many around the world for years to come.

Eric

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Cash/Check Donations:

CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Last Name: __________________________

First Name: _________________________

MI:____

Mailing Address:

_________________________________________________________

City: ____________________ State ____ Zip _______________

Telephone:

Home: (______)________________

Work: (______)________________

E-mail Address:

DONATIONS
A One-time Donation to Young Ambassadors, in the Amount of:

$2,500 $1,000 $500 $350 $100 $50 Other:$

A Repeating Donation of $ ______ Every Month, Amounting to a Total of $

Account no. 30 113025, Young Ambassadors

* For $500/above donors: name you would like on your commemorative wooden floor piece: ______________

METHOD OF PAYMENT

__Cash or check enclosed. Please make checks payable to BYU Young Ambassadors

__I have ideas of others who may be able and interested in giving to Young Ambassadors. Please contact me.

Please PRINT OUT the above information and mail it with your cash or check payment to:
The BYU Young Ambassadors

1128 Richards Building, Brigham Young University

Provo, UT 84602

Questions: Contact Varden Hadfield (call 801-422-1133 or email hadfield@byu.edu) for details.