ENDOW YOUR ANNUAL GIVING
Be There For Kent Every Year…….In Perpetuity!

By now you are aware of Kent's new K-E-Y Society, established in 2002 to honor those alumni, parents, faculty, and friends who are there for Kent Every Year dependably offering whatever support their circumstances permit to Kent's Annual Fund. Specifically, the K-E-Y Society honors those who have given to the Annual Fund at whatever level for five or more consecutive years, including the current year. Currently, K-E-Y Society membership stands at 1,087, a surprising number of whom have been giving each and every year since they graduated in the earliest decades of the School. But what if you could arrange always to be there for Kent Every Year? Well, thanks to Edward Abbe '34 you can.

Because he saw it as a natural outgrowth of his annual habit of giving to Kent's Annual Fund, Edward H. Abbe '34 was the first Kent School graduate to introduce in 1975 the idea of endowing his annual giving. In 1985, another steady giver -- the late DeWitt Peterkin, Jr., former President of the Board of Trustees and graduate of the Class of 1933 endowed his annual giving. Every year since his death, his endowment has generated a leadership gift to the Annual Fund under his name and under his Class banner. It will ontinue to do so in perpetuity. In this way, neither he, nor Ed, nor the other twenty-one alumni and alumni spouses listed below who have endowed their annual giving will ever be lost to Kent School's Alumni Giving Rolls.

Prior to Ed Abbe '34 making this thoughtful gift, Kent's Annual Fund literally began each fiscal year at the zero dollar level and had to build from there.

Eager to promote this wonderful idea, the School several years ago established The Annual Giving Endowment Fund. This "pooled" fund represents endowed gifts of $25,000 or more from an ever-growing number of thoughtful individuals. It is this growing "pooled" endowment that, each year, insures a more substantial base or financial "foundation" upon which the Annual Fund can grow.

The $25,000 "threshold" for participating in Kent's Annual Giving Endowment Fund" can be achieved all at once or over a period of years. Twenty-two other graduates and spouses of graduates have followed Ed's example by contributing to Kent's Annual Giving endowment Fund: (1) some through outright gifts or gifts pledged over a period of three to five years; (2) some by way of bequests; (3) some by way of one of Kent's life-income giving arrangements (i.e. Pooled Income Funds; Charitable Gift Annuities; Charitable Remainder and Charitable Lead Trusts); (4) some by way of an IRA or other pension plan assignment; and (5) some by gifts of life insurance. As a consequence, our Annual Fund is now able to begin each fiscal year with a guaranteed base of some $35,000, collectively generated by the Annual Giving Endowments currently in place.

The School invites any member of the Kent Family to consider taking this thoughtful step of endowing his/her annual giving. Kent School's Annual Giving Endowment Fund is a logical complement to the established tradition of being there for Kent Every Year that we now honor in our K-E-Y Society.

Just imagine the positive effect such a concept could have over time if widely adopted by those who have already established a tradition of caring for the School's present and future well-being! If a thousand Kent graduates were one day to take this thoughtful step by building up to a threshold endowment of $25,000 in the Kent Annual Giving Endowment Fund, the School's critically important Annual Fund could meet the beginning of each new fund year with a guaranteed base of one million dollars upon which to build (based on a
4% income draw) What better way to be there for Kent Every Year! What better way to insure a vigorous future for Kent School!

If you are interested in exploring how you might endow your annual giving, please contact the Alumni and Development Office at 877-770-5368 (toll free).

Those who have Endowed their Annual Giving