Congratulations and thank you to all of our PVP Branch members who made donations to the AAUW Fund in 2023. The numbers for the Individual branches are in and our total is $3184. Alsoannounced was the preliminary count for the entire state and it totals $512,514 which is $65,000 abovethe projected amount. Most of these donations go to the AAUW Greatest Needs Fund.

According to a just published report titled “Demystifying AAUW’s Greatest Needs” this is an unrestricted fund which represents just 5% of the total net assets of AAUW. The remaining 95% are restricted funds which include Fellowships, Grants, Endowments and other special programs.

The report goes on to discuss the impact of this unrestricted giving. 1) Having solid and sustainable management overhead makes AAUW more resilient to economic downtowns and disruptions like apandemic or other disaster. 2) AAUW is able to continue and build mission-critical activities and programs when restricted funds are not available. 3) Stable funding allows AAUW to focus on long term planning goals and allocate resources wisely. 4) It makes it possible to pay competitive salaries tohire and retain employees.  (Taken from report)

Please keep in mind how hard this little piece of the AAUW pie works to give flexibility and financial security to AAUW when you next put on your donation hat. And thank you again for your generous donations in 2023.

Ruth Bloland, AAUW Fund Co-Chair