National Tsing Hua University North America Foundation 5-year (2018-2023) Summary Report
By In Yuan Li
Math 70,72G, Head of the Treasury Committee
01/30/2024
National Tsing Hua University North America Foundation (NTHU-NA Foundation) was established in May 2018 by North America alumni and has celebrated its fifth anniversary.
This report summarizes and presents the efforts made by the Foundation’s financial team (the Treasury Committee) for National Tsing Hua University (NTHU), our alma mater, over the past five years, as well as its prospects.
In the past five years, the Foundation members were alumni ranging from newly graduated to those who graduated over 50 years. These alumni generously volunteered their time or financial resources to the Foundation. Because of their hard work and involvement, the Foundation accomplished what we have today. To show gratitude to our alma mater that nurtured us during the college years, this group of determined alumni has been striving for excellence every step of the way. We understand clearly there is a lot of room for improvement. The spirit of the school motto: "Continue to work diligently and strive for self-improvement” (自強不息；厚德載物) will keep us working as a team assiduously.
The vision of NTHU-NA Foundation is to engage National Tsing Hua University's North America alumni to support and advance the University's excellence. Its mission is to support National Tsing Hua University to retain its high standard and high quality in education and research to improve the world today and for future generations.
In alignment with the vision and the mission, members of the treasury committee tirelessly executed the main tasks: collecting the checks, recording the donation preferences, mailing the receipts and thank-you letters as an acknowledgement of the donations. Moreover, the Foundation is also responsible for reviewing the grant applications from NTHU and electronically wiring the collected funds. For the last five consecutive years, the Foundation has wired the funds to NTHU twice a year (see Table 1) to facilitate and support the projects of our alma mater. Among the treasury committee members, there are various talented individuals that specialize in the disciplines such as professional accountants, lawyers, engineers, financial experts, online web specialists, etc. It is an immense alliance for alumni talents to support the alma mater.
Up to the end of 2023, the Foundation has disbursed grants ten times back to NTHU. The total remittances have reached over $7.1 million U.S. dollars. North American alumni have donated to the Foundation via various means, such as checks, PayPal, Zelle, stocks, and Corporate Matching Funds (applied by the donors). The following table depicts the statistics of all the donations made so far (ending Dec 18, 2023).
Table 2 lists the top five donation preferences each year. The information is also available on the NTHU-NA Foundation website.
The statistics table shows that there were 454 donations. However, there were donors who made frequent donations. Further details revealed that there were less than 300 alumni who have donated to the Foundation in the last five years. We must continue to work harder on campaigning and encouraging the alumni to support the Foundation’s vision and mission. Donating through the Foundation is a powerful way to express our appreciation to NTHU.
In addition, as mentioned earlier, many corporations in the United States have “Matching Funds” as a benefit for employees. Currently, the companies that alumni have applied to participate in the matching funds are AT&T, Shell Oil, AXA, Boeing, Pfizer Foundation, etc. Thus, we must strongly suggest alumni to explore the “matching fund” option. There are corporations that will match retirees’ donations, Boeing is one of them. Furthermore, the retired alumni can also use RMD/QCD from their IRA account to get the tax benefit. Please check the Foundation website or contact the treasury committee members for more detailed information.
The projects that the Foundation has funded or still funding the NTHU include renovation of Cheng Kung Lake, Junshan Concert Hall and Double Pianos, various departments scholarships, Sunrise Scholarships, General Purpose endowment funds, Talent funds, CTM new building, Childhood education endowment funds, Wish comes true scholarship, and more. The most noticeable one is the Cheng Kung Lake restoration. Cheng Kung Lake is the most memorable sight of all the alumni, because it reminds us of the warm and lovely time that we had during our college days. Walking around the lake, one can see prominent signs specifying that donations were made via NTHU-NA Foundation. All alumni should take a stroll on the trails around the new Cheng Kung Lake when visiting the alma mater to enjoy the beautiful sunrise, sunset, or spectacular night view by Cheng Kung Lake.
Additionally, the Foundation wholly supports the alma mater’s recently launched Tsing Hua development strategic fundraising plan with goals that will (1) increase cross-disciplinary planning, (2) strengthen relationship between teachers and students by providing academic excellence and mentorship, (3) encourage faculty members setting annual goal and continuously making measurable improvement, and (4) retain and aggressively recruit top talented faculty members. For the more detailed explanation of the plans, please visit the Foundation website.
The Foundation's treasury committee is currently streamlining its operations, such as consolidating financial accounts, and centralizing bank locations and stock management. These changes of operation will not only allow the donors to have more flexibility and also provide smoother transition for the future board of directors. The prospect is to aggressively apply the available technology and to automate all the operation procedures as much as possible. Currently, the treasury committee is migrating financial data input and storage to a cloud-based environment. Soon all of the steps will be networked — from donation form submission, donation recording, bookkeeping, bank reconciliation, and thank-you letter generation, enabling us to reply to the donors in a timely manner.
Moreover, the treasury committee also has established multiple communication channels with our alma mater NTHU; thus, the Foundation can timely support project requirements for NTHU. We also share the names of donors with NTHU with their permission to allow NTHU to convey its appreciation to the donors directly. This way, we can strengthen the trust between the Foundation and donors. Furthermore, this will encourage more alumni to support more projects and help NTHU retain its high standard and high quality in education and research.
Starting this year 2024, the Foundation will begin to disburse the funds more frequently, increasing from twice a year to four times a year. This will allow NTHU to receive the generosity from our alumni sooner and at the same time strengthen its trust with the Foundation.
Since the inception, the Foundation has been looking for enthusiastic and devoted alumni to join the Foundation to help support our alma mater’s projects. Hopefully, this report can attract more alumni to join our Foundation. We would also like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude to all the alumni who have worked hard for the Foundation, including those who have left the Foundation.
Finally, many thanks to all the alumni and friends of NTHU for their donations and support for NTHU. Without your support, we would not be where we are today.
Tsing Hua Alumni let us keep up the excellent work and keep going!
We wish everyone a prosperous and great new year!