Earlham College | News from Public Affairs

RICHMOND, Ind. — Say “college fundraiser” and what leaps to mind? Semi-formal get-togethers where campus officials meet with alumni and other would-be benefactors to chat over cocktails and chicken dinners? Or perhaps, groups of young students in tiny, windowless rooms busy manning banks of phones — literally reaching out to “touch” someone?

Professor of Biology Bill Buskirk leading a birding tour of back campus during an Earlham Forum presentation last year. Since 1982 the 31-year member of the science faculty also has been at the forefront of the annual Earlham College Birding Big Day, which by official totals has generated nearly a half-million dollars in donations to the College.

Whatever mental pictures may arise, it’s probably a safe bet they don’t include scenes of blue-winged warblers, hooded mergansers, ruby-crowned kinglets or yellow-breasted chats. Unless, that is, one is somehow familiar with Earlham College, where in 1982 Professors of Biology Bill Buskirk and Jim Cope had the idea of pairing the institution’s national reputation for innovative instruction in the natural sciences with a program to raise money for general scholarship support.

The result was, and is, the Earlham College Birding Big Day (ECBBD), by which prospective donors make contributions to the College based upon the number of different bird species that roving bands of bird-spotting students, faculty and alumni identify on a given day in early May, when spring bird migration is peaking in the Whitewater River Valley of Indiana and Ohio.

Almost inevitably, of course, some early skeptics simply couldn’t resist scoffing at the proposal as being “bird-brained.” And even Buskirk admits to a few initial doubts.

“That first year, I was so uncertain about what would happen that I personally pledged enough to be sure we covered all of the postage (on the pledge cards sent to potential donors),” Buskirk recounts, even as he busies himself preparing for ECBBD 2005 — set to begin in the early morning hours of Friday, May 6.

Far beyond merely covering the postage for the now more than 2,000 individual mailings sent in connection with ECBBD every year, the project has raised over $407,000 in donations to the College’s annual fund. Although it’s believed the actual total may be closer to a half-million dollars, given that the Alumni and Development Office did not begin keeping records specific to ECBBD until 1988, six years after the first Big Day.

“It’s amazing,” enthuses Deloris Mabins-Adenekan, who as Earlham’s director of annual giving and alumni relations supervises the actual fundraising portion of the project. “Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but I still can’t quite get a grip around why it all works. But, it does. I guess maybe you just have to say it’s another one of those things that’s uniquely Earlham.”

“I’m not sure that just any college could do this and really be successful,” says Earlham’s resident ornithology expert. “But, there’s such a strong tradition of field biology here, it just seemed like such a natural.”

In the past 59 years — since Jim Cope joined the faculty in 1946 — Earlham probably has produced more ornithologists per capita than any other college in the nation, says Buskirk, himself a member of the Biology Department for more than three decades. Since Cope’s passing in 2002, Buskirk has served as the principal organizer of ECBBD.

“A lot of Earlham students, science majors and non-majors, have taken the ornithology class and discovered that love of birds and of nature, which for many has developed into a new, life-long avocation,” Buskirk says. “It’s pretty astounding. So, no, it doesn’t surprise me that among many Earlham alumni there should be a lot of excitement about the outdoors, about birds and natural history.

“For me, really, the more surprising thing about Birding Big Day is that so many people continue to find it such an enjoyable way to be involved with the College.”

Indeed, Associate Vice President for Institutional Advancement Kim Tanner acknowledges that a fair number of the pledges made to Earlham via Birding Big Day come from individuals using the program as their exclusive conduit for sending money to the College.

According to figures compiled by Laura Stone Hinkley ’95 and Karen Addleman of the Alumni and Development Office, a total of 876 individual contributors have given to the College through Birding Big Day since 1988. The yearly average of 271 participants includes many repeat donors — a dozen have given every year — who help account for nearly 5,500 distinct donations in the past 17 years. The smallest gift was 50 cents; the largest to date was $1,850.

ECBBD pledges may be made at a choice of levels, from 25 cents up to $10 per species recorded. Donors also may choose to set their own per species pledge level or opt to make a lump sum gift.

While he says the majority of those contacted today about participating in Birding Big Day — “on the ground” and/or by making a pledge — are former Earlham biology majors, Buskirk estimates that a third are non-biology grads who nevertheless took field courses at one time or another with him or Jim Cope. Included, as well, in that minority contingent, reports Buskirk, is a small but gradually increasing number of non-alumni members of the regional birding community.

For most of its history, Birding Big Day was pretty much confined to people with direct ties to the College, Buskirk says, adding that as the event grew in size and notoriety inquiries started arriving each year from non-College affiliated birders in the area who were looking to get in on the day’s action in the field. On one particular occasion, relates Buskirk with a laugh, a couple of local enthusiasts thought they might pass the direct association test by advising him, “Well, we once dated some Earlham girls. …”

“In terms of who’s in the field, since Jim’s death we’ve tried to open things up a bit to take in some of the other people who’ve contacted us over the years saying, ‘We’d like to join in,’” says Buskirk, explaining that as a result of making the fieldwork portion of ECBBD more accessible, that aspect of event also has become much more of a family activity.

“I got a call the other day from a former student who was a non-biology major but took the bird class,” Buskirk says. “He’s coming to this year’s Day with his daughter and he’s also bringing along a friend, who’s bringing his daughter. I think some of our alumni enjoy bringing their children and taking them back to a few of the old haunts they may have visited as students — back campus, Wildman Woods, Cope Environmental Center, Whitewater State Park. Although it’s not something we ever anticipated would happen, I think it’s great — part of the development of the Earlham family.”

While generating serious amounts of money for Earlham during the past quarter-century, Birding Big Day also has contributed significantly to scientific understanding of bird migration and habitat in the region, says Buskirk. Usually the first spotter out and about each Big Day, he also is the first person to record the discovery of an osprey nest (near the town of Liberty) in Indiana.

“We’ve had a lot of unusual spottings since we started,” Buskirk says, “including some that, at the time, were wholly unexpected for Indiana or Ohio.”

Last year, with a record 31 observers arranged into 13 teams, an ECBBD record of 165 species were identified, reports Buskirk, adding that among that number was one type of bird — the Least Bittern — making its first-ever appearance on a Birding Big Day observer log.

“I think with the changes occurring in global climate, we’re likely to see more atypical species moving into the area in the years to come,” says Buskirk, “and in that sense I think Birding Big Day could prove to be really valuable, beyond the funds it helps to raise for the College. We’ve put together a 20-year database on a lot of different birds in the region. We’ve studied migration patterns. We’ve looked at a lot of habitat.

“So, again, as we anticipate more environmental changes in the future, I don’t think we can lose sight of the fact that what we’re doing with Birding Big Day is important science, too.”

Kim Tanner, associate vice president for institutional advancement
765/983-1631 — E-Mail Kim