This is just a quick note to let you know that I am planning on following up on last year’s successful Spontaneous Scholarships campaign again this year to help pay people for the cost of registration for the SAA Annual Meeting in San Diego ($319 for regular SAA members, $139 for students).
The tentative schedule is that I will kick off the campaign on June 1, both by putting up the post asking for donations and starting to accept requests for funding. The process for applicants will be the same–all you need to do is send in your name and indicate if you will be registering as a student or regular SAA member. Anyone who needs some assistance with funding is welcome to apply. The deadline for applicants will be June 29, at which point I will see how much money we have and begin drawing names out of a hat, and keep going until we run out of money. Lucky winners will be notified on or about June 30/July 1, so that you will have time to register before the early bird deadline (July 6). Once I receive confirmation that you’ve registered, I’ll mail you a check to cover your registration for the meeting.
I’m happy to start taking donations now, if people want to start sending them in by mail. One reason I’m starting a little early this year is to encourage people to send in checks, which are not subject to PayPal transaction fees so more money goes directly to our colleagues. If you want to send in a check, please email me at info@archivesnext.com and I’ll provide you with my mailing address. (Or if you’re an SAA member you can just look me up in the member database. I’m listed.) On June 1 I’ll put up the post with a PayPal link, so if you’d rather do that, just wait for June. (Remember that since this is an informal effort your donation is NOT tax deductible. All you will get is a warm fuzzy feeling knowing you helped some of your colleagues and my everlasting gratitude. Last year I did not post a list of the people who donated. If you think that would be a good idea this year, let me know.)
So expect to hear more about this in June. I’ll be trying to find every avenue I can think of in which to ask for donations, and I’m always happy to have people helping me to get the word out. We did very well last year in large part because one donor was mind-bogglingly generous, but we can’t count on that again this year. Every small donations helps. I don’t know how many people will be asking for funding–San Diego might not be as big a draw as Chicago was, but I’d like to be able to fund as many people as possible.
Last year in 2 weeks we had 94 generous people donate and made 26 people very happy. This year since the first number will be bigger I hope the other two will be also.
