Several years ago, the Sigma Pi Educational Foundation (the Foundation) started a program to create Chapter Educational Funds (CEF). Before we talk about what a CEF is and what it can do for you and your chapter, you should know that the Foundation is a 501c3 tax-exempt organization. This means that donations made to the Foundation are tax-deductible to the fullest extent of the law. In other words, if you write a check to the Foundation for $5, $50, or $5,000, then all of those funds can be list as charitable contributions when you or your accountant prepares your deductions for the tax year.

Sigma Pi Fraternity (the Fraternity) and the Foundation have done a lot of research over the years. For the Foundation, that research was focused on what it could do to entice more of our 50,000+ living alumni to donate for the advancement of the Fraternity. In 2003, the Foundation commissioned a report from a third party group to ascertain – among other goals – whether it could raise significant funds from our alumni base to support national programs. The report gave the Foundation many results, including the fact that most alumni want to find a way to support their local chapter more so than the national organization.

Several years later in 2010, the Foundation again studied what Sigma Pi alumni felt strongly about as it put together its strategic plan. During the focus groups and outreach in 2010 it was clear, again, that our alumni love Sigma Pi and would love for the Foundation to provide an option that allowed them to donate for the benefit of their local chapter. This finding would be one of the many outcomes in late 2011 when another third party group researched the prospects of raising significant funds to support national programs.

The message is clear – Sigma Pi alumni are willing and able to donate to the Foundation. They prefer that those donations help their local chapters succeed.

The Foundation has always welcomed those individual alumni or groups of alumni who seek to set up a scholarship to honor a living mentor or as a memorial to a brother who has passed away. In fact, the Foundation awards several national honorarium and memorial scholarships each year. Yet, the research showed that the Fraternity’s alumni wanted to donate to something more directly aligned with their local chapter. Thus was born the CEF program.

The CEF program allows a group of local alumni – called a Local Advisory Committee (LAC) – to create a specific fund at the Foundation where money donated to that fund is used solely for the benefit of their local chapter. Like a traditional Foundation scholarship, a CEF can allow the LAC to award scholarships to members of their local chapter. Yet, a CEF is a more flexible tool to help the local chapter improve because of the other various uses of donated funds. In addition to scholarships, a CEF may provide fellowships for graduate members of a chapter to pursue advanced degrees or professional development programs.

Any use that is academic or educational in nature is an allowable use of money donated to a CEF.

In the recent past, CEFs have been used to provide full reimbursements of registration fees for undergraduates to attend Sigma Pi University (now called Sigma Pi UIFI). Similarly, CEFs have been used to provide full reimbursement of travel costs for undergraduates to attend the Mid-Year Leadership Conference as well as Sigma Pi University. On a more local level, CEFs have been used to pay for the event reservation fees and food costs for academic and leadership training breakfasts and luncheons hosted on-campus where instruction is provided by highly-qualified local alumni and/or invited guest speakers. In other words, if your chapter’s alumni want to host an annual brunch for your undergraduates where you can instruct the undergraduates on issues related to their academic and/or educational growth, then you can pay for the costs of that event through donations to your local CEF.

A CEF can also be used to purchase academic or educational equipment for the chapter. What does that mean? Well, it means if your chapter owns a chapter house and there is space for a library or study area in the house, then funds donated to a CEF can be used to outfit that space with academic equipment (i.e. computers, software, and networking needs).

The uses stated above are what can be achieved when money that you donate to your local CEF is granted (i.e. given away) to a specific cause. However, if you opt to keep the funds in the CEF (i.e. you’re not granting them away), then the flexibility of your CEF increases.

In this option, money donated to a CEF can be used to provide a loan to the local chapter, alumni club, or housing corporation to make improvements to a chapter house. The breadth and scope of those improvements do not have the same academic and educational limitations as when money is granted from the CEF because in this instance, the money in the CEF isn’t being given away. Instead, an LAC may request a loan from its CEF for any housing-related reason including making immediate quality-of-life repairs to a chapter house, building an addition on to an existing chapter house, or even helping a chapter purchase a new house. In those scenarios where a loan is provided by your CEF, the LAC should expect a full underwriting and approval process – just like getting a loan from a local bank. Typically, interest will accrue on the loan at a rate agreed upon by the LAC and the Foundation and the CEF will have to pay an origination fee (which can be negotiated). Unlike a bank, however, it is typical for half of the interest that is paid by the borrower to be placed back into the chapter’s CEF and for the other half of the interest to be paid to the Foundation, which helps it operate (once the interest funds are put back into the CEF, they can be used for the same purposes noted above). Several Sigma Pi chapters around the country currently have loans outstanding from their CEFs with similar repayment terms.

There are some other ins and outs that an alumnus or group of alumni need to know before opening a CEF, but those issues can be better discussed directly with the Foundation. What is important to understand is that if you want your chapter to have an annual scholarship or some academic fellowships, if you would like to see your chapter’s registration fees and travel costs to attend most national conferences fully reimbursed, or if you’d like to see your chapter receive a loan (where they’re actually getting a portion of the interest back!) to address housing issues, then you really should consider the Foundation’s CEF program.

Happy Birthday Sigma Pi Fraternity

For my part, I’ve mentioned time and time again on this blog that I support the Sigma Pi Educational Foundation. To show my support for the Fraternity, I donate my time as a member of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees. And I give them a few bucks each year, too.

If you’re feeling a little bit charitable and have a few dollars that you’d like to see put to good use by reducing the cost of education for scholarship winners, then head over to the Foundation’s website and we will gratefully welcome your contribution. Thanks!

It’s a whole different world being a Trustee for the foundation, really.

There are a few entries that are set to automatically load while I’m away so you’ll have something to read on this site over the next few days. And, for what it’s worth, I think that this is going to be my last trip to this conference so long as it continues to be held during Super Bowl weekend. As you’ll read in the entries that are set to automatically load over the next few days, I’ve been finishing up (or am getting ready to finish up) some major projects for the foundation that will allow me to regain some of my free time in the coming months and years.

Once those projects are completed, I’ll have less of an obligation to attend these awkwardly scheduled events (it’s Super Bowl weekend!) and thus I’ll be able to spend some more time working on items outside of the fraternity. Plus, I won’t be running late to my own Super Bowl parties any more!

Enjoy the next few entries as they’re uploaded and I’ll be back next week!

It was pretty cool.

More than anything else, though, I have to say that the folks who worked at the Distillery were phenomenal. We went on a tour of the facilities and our tour guide (his name was John) was not just extremely knowledgeable about the Jack Daniel’s distilling process, but he was a funny, friendly guy, too. If anyone happens to be in the Lynchburg or Nashville area, then I highly recommend heading over to the Jack Daniel’s Distillery. You won’t be disappointed!

Here are some thirty pictures from my visit to the Distillery. Enjoy!

In the mean time, I have a few entries ready for your viewing on JerseySmarts.com! I’ve set the system here to automatically upload a few entries over the next few days – I hope you enjoy them while I’m away.

In addition, I’ve been reading through some of the books that are taking up space on my bookshelf and, obviously, you should look for a few book reviews coming in the next few days/weeks. And hey, at least one of these reviews is for a book sent to me from a professional wrestler’s publishing company so I could offer some commentary on the piece. Pretty cool, huh? Here are some other things that I’m working on that may not receive their own entry on JerseySmarts.com:

• Sigma Pi Educational Foundation: I make no secret out of the fact that I donate my time, talent, and whatever treasure I can scrounge up to the Sigma Pi Educational Foundation. With respect to that “talent” portion of my contributions, since August I’ve been heading up the Foundation’s strategic plan study group. This duty has allowed me to work closely with some of my fellow Trustees as well as some volunteers – all of whom are looking for a better, stronger way forward for the Foundation and Fraternity alike. Earlier this week we held the last focus group conference call which capped a two and a half week period of these types of calls – many of which I was on for over an hour. I’ve compiled a preliminary, raw data report and sent it out for the study group’s review. Later this week we’re going to have another conference call and then I’m going to spend some time compiling a final report to the entire Board of Trustees. However, the work isn’t over yet. In a few weeks I’ll be heading to Nashville, Tennessee to present our research findings and then to lead the larger strategic planning process with the entire Board of Trustees. This process will be capped off during the December/January time frame and then, finally, I can take a breather on this stuff! By the way, click here if you want to make a small, 100% tax-deductible donation to support the Foundation’s scholarships.
• Preparing for a Family Night: Over the last few weeks, I worked with my brothers and future sister-in-law to plan for a family night and dinner for my Mother’s recent birthday. We had the family night and dinner last night and it was a lot of fun, I think. In fact, one of the best things to come out of last night was a family discussion about reducing our excess spending on Christmas this year because, frankly, we’re all working towards specific financial goals that require a dedicated planning effort on our parts. It was a great conversation and a great conclusion, I think. Plus, spending the night with the family for dinner to celebrate my Mother’s birthday was a great time!
• Financial Planning Roadblock, Courtesy of NJHESAA: I’m not sure yet, but I might spin this little blip off into its own entry to mimic an entry that I wrote both one month ago and many months ago. The long and short of it is that I sent a $1,000 payment to NJHESAA on Monday, October 18th. The check was finally posted to my account on Thursday, October 28th. But that’s not what has me completely frustrated and aggravated with this anti-customer service organization. What bothers me is that I sent a $4,300 check to NJHESAA on Tuesday, October 19th and here we are on Saturday, October 30th and the check hasn’t been posted to my account yet. What the Hell is NJHESAA waiting for to post my damn check?! This isn’t hard, NJHESAA – I know you have the check now post the damn thing to my account for goodness’ sake. I can’t wait to be done with this miserable, horrible organization. NJHESAA could learn a thing or two from the United States Department of Education about customer service and making the student loan repayment process easier for the borrower. Because, at this point, NJHESAA’s payment processing system is borderline ineffective which tells me that there has to be some incompetent people working there. What else could bring on a nearly two week delay?!
• Financial Projections and Forecasting Stunted: As you might imagine, because of NJHESAA’s inability to process a check with any semblance of efficiency, my financial projections and forecasting has been stunted for the last few weeks. For a guy who checks each of his accounts both in the morning and at night (and sometimes in the middle of the day), waiting for these bozos to post this check is torture. I’ve been adjusting my projection models by $4,300 every time that I go in there and make a move. It’s annoying. I have a lot of financial goals that I expect myself to achieve in the coming weeks, months, and years and with my ability to precisely project when my dollars will be posted to various accounts, it makes planning for the immediate future very difficult.
• Bizarre Indian Summer: I’m not going to spin this out into its own entry because it’s short, but if you live in New Jersey then you know that we had this weird Indian summer hit us in the last week or so. Before the mini-heat wave hit, I went out and purchased a radiator for my bedroom and it’s awesome! It actually warms up the entire second floor of the townhouse – can’t complain about that at all!
• Beginning to Complete Coursework: Some of you may remember that I’m actually enrolled in an independent study course at the local college where I teach. Successfully completing this independent study will give me a Public Relations Specialist certificate. Not too bad, huh? I’ve read through the material for the course and, once the final strategic plan report is completed for the Foundation (see above), I’m going to aggressively complete the required coursework for the independent study. I’ve decided that this is going to be the last course that I take for a while since it will complete the certificate program. Also, I don’t want to go back for more education until my life calms down just a little bit (which I think is coming within the next two years, thankfully).
• Grading, Grading, and More Grading: It’s midterm season at the college where I’m an Adjunct Professor so you know what that means – grading time! But it’s not only grading time for the class that I teach in the face-to-face setting. It’s also grading time for the classes that I teach for the online college. I’m thinking of asking the online college to reduce the number of classes that they assign to me – they’re giving me two or three each month and it is so incredibly time consuming that it’s painful sometimes…
• Some Consistency at the Local Gym: Hey – I’ve been going to the local college gym at least once each weekend for the last three weeks. Not bad, right? And now you know why I’ve been able to read so much in the last few weeks – I’ve been on the treadmill. I’ll be heading to the gym tomorrow morning before the trick-or-treaters start knocking on my door. While my results at the gym haven’t been overly impressive (I’m not necessarily losing a bunch of weight – a pound here and there maybe), I am pretty pleased that I’ve been able to make it there one day each weekend during a very busy, crazy time for me.
• Unending Projects at the Office: Hovering above all of the stuff written above is the fact that I have a pretty busy, increasingly stressful day job. Part of that stress comes from the person that manages my department and her mood swings, part of that stress comes from a changing workplace that expects the existing employees to transition to a new organizational structure without officially telling us what that structure will look like (or interviewing us for new positions), and part of that stress comes from the daily grind stuff that needs to be completed day in and day out that is made harder by the fact that my particular department is well-understaffed and thus we all have to do four/five different jobs each. And when you add in the fact that I’ve been doing a lot of the communication work for the organization – you can see how the stress builds up. Very annoying and, frankly, until this day-to-day stress goes away (which better happen soon), I think some of the other goals I have for my health and finances are going to be hard to achieve.
• Changing the Face of Usable Web Solutions, LLC: Thankfully, after months of trying, I’ve successfully spun off one of my last remaining problem clients. Sure, the client screwed me on the way out the door, but I’m so excited that this client is gone that I don’t even care any more about the screw job. Whatever. Removing this client effectively removes more stress from my life and, ultimately, makes Usable Web Solutions, LLC a stronger, better organization. And with that, I’m beginning to change the nature of this small business. In the future, I’m going to focus on websites that are owned by the company and bring in advertising revenue because, honestly, that’s where the money is in this online business stuff. Going out there to find independent clients is not the way to find success in the website world.
• Barnes & Noble’s New NookColor: Here’s a quick item for both the “Watch What You Say to Customers” and “Buyer Beware” files. For some awful reason I’ve been researching e-readers lately. I don’t know why – I love reading an actual book and I really don’t like the setup or arrangement of the e-readers that are on the market. But still, I began researching them and decided that I wanted to buy a Barnes & Noble Nook. However, something told me to wait. I wasn’t sure what it was that told me to wait, but I think it had something to do with the good voice in my head constantly shouting that I had dozens and dozens of physical books in my home that I haven’t even read yet! So, this buyer was wary of the products on the market and didn’t buy. Then, lo and behold, the NookColor is introduced and now I want to buy that thing as soon as possible (probably early next year once the inevitable glitches have been worked out). But the “Watch What You Say to Customers” file comes into play here because, just days before the NookColor was released I asked the guy at the local Barnes & Noble whether or not a new model was coming out and he swore up and down to me that, “We’re not Apple – we don’t have a new version of the product each year.” Oh yeah? Really? Hmmm…

There are a few different items that I’ve been working on that I didn’t think would find full entries on JerseySmarts.com. However, this stuff may be of some importance to a few of you so I hope that you enjoyed reading!

• Quality Time at the CSA Farm: In the next day or two, I’ll be posting some pictures of our recent takes from the local CSA farm. Spending time at the CSA farm is fun and a great way to be out there in a beautiful, rural area of New Jersey.
• Asbury Park Boardwalk: One of my goals during this vacation from work was to spend some time laying on the beach. Well, I didn’t quite get to lay on the beach due to a rushed schedule, but I did get a chance to walk up and down the Asbury Park boardwalk, which was a lot of fun. Hopefully, we’ll have another warm day before the leaves change and I’ll be able to get to the beach for a final time this season.
• Personal Planning: I’ve always wanted to take a week off from work to spend that free time focusing on me and what I’d like to do with the next X months/years of my life. I managed to squeeze in some time to consider those thoughts on Tuesday of last week, but I didn’t want to rush the situation, so I let it go for the time being. My next full week off from work is after Christmas, so that might be a good time. What I did come to a personal conclusion about, though, is how I need to start working out again with the same vigor that I had back in 2004 and 2005 (when I dropped 125 pounds before gaining 100 back). More on that one of these days.
• Went to a Baseball Game: Going to a baseball game was high on my list of “do this before the summer ends” activities. This past Thursday night I went up to a Newark Bears game and had a really good time. So check that off the list!
• Begin Teaching: Another reason why I wanted to take this time off was because it was the first week of school at the local college where I teach a political science class. This semester is the first time that I’m teaching at 8:30am instead of 7:25pm (big difference, huh?) so I wanted to give myself some time to get used to the campus atmosphere at that time of the day. Plus, I wanted to spend some extra time preparing my classes and reviewing my previously prepared presentations. I also began teaching three online courses at the local online university, too.
• Say Thank You and Fundraise: Another reason why I opted to take this particular week off was because the Chief Operations Officer of the foundation where I serve as a Board Trustee and the Board Treasurer was in town this week. I was happy to host him in my home and travel with him around New Jersey on Wednesday through Saturday to say thank you to some of our donors from New Jersey. In addition to saying thank you, we were also able to host some meetings to educate some of our foundation’s volunteers and raise some additional funds around some of our initiatives. By my quick count, we raised about $22,000 in commitments and first-year pledges. Not too bad for three and a half days, huh? Plus, one can never be sure about any additional funds that may come in due to folks simply being excited about hearing “thank you” regarding their previous donations.
• Worked with Local Chapter: I’ve noted numerous times on this blog how I work with the local chapter of my fraternity. In short, I act as a mentor to some of the undergraduate leaders and provide them with insight on how to operate their chapter in an efficient manner. Anyway, this was their first week back at school so I had dinner with some of their leaders, attended one of their meetings, and met with the entire chapter for lunch on campus. What’s even better is that I met with a young alumnus of the chapter that wants to do this job in my place – so I’m providing him with some training so that one day he could take over and act as the local chapter’s advisor. Great stuff.

Unfortunately, though, I was not able to accomplish all of the things that I planned on accomplishing during this staycation. For example, I wanted to renovate the syllabus for the class that I designed and taught for the first time last spring; just didn’t have the time to do that in the past week. Also, I wanted to finish up at least three of the books that I’m in the middle of reading at the moment – didn’t even pick up any of the books that I’m reading (too busy running around the state). With respect to JerseySmarts.com, I have some material that was sent in from some young writers and musicians that I wanted to review during the last week, but I’m going to have to push that off for another 10 – 14 days. And as for Usable Web Solutions, LLC, there were two major projects that I wanted to complete during the last week and I didn’t have a chance to start on either one of them.

But all of that is okay – I’m ready to get back to work and focus on hitting a couple of home runs in the office before the end of my company’s fiscal year on September 30, 2010! As for the rest of today, though, I’m heading over to a former roommate’s house to watch some football!

Today, we’re headed to North Jersey to a statewide workshop where we will educate our younger members on just what the Foundation is and what the Foundation provides for them. In addition, we’ll be talking to some of New Jersey’s alumni volunteers and thanking them for their continued support.

It’s been a busy staycation to say the least – I’m actually looking forward to going back to work on Monday so that I can slow down a little bit! As I said in the last update, I have a lot of pictures and other stuff to post on the blog in the coming days, so stay tuned.

So far it’s been pretty fun!

I have a bunch of pictures to post on JerseySmarts.com and a bunch of stories to tell, too. The pictures range from our latest harvest at the local CSA farm to my time on the beach in Asbury Park two weeks ago. The stories are interesting, too, as they talk about how my classroom was a bit of a wreck during the first class that I taught this semester (this past Tuesday morning) and how I almost got into a bit of an altercation with one of the folks at the college bookstore after my class was over!

Stay tuned – I’ll be writing more tomorrow and the next day!

You know, when I take time off from work I have to use my vacation days. Yet, most of the times when I use those days I’m actually not “vacating” anything. In fact, most of the time I’m doing some type of volunteer work for the Sigma Pi Educational Foundation.

So…

Now that I actually have a few days off, I’m thinking about heading to the beach. Believe it or not, for the last ten years I’ve lived a few minutes from the Atlantic Ocean on the beautiful Jersey Shore and yet I’ve probably been to the beach less than ten times in these ten years. It’s bizarre, really. In addition to the beach, I plan on going to the movies and seeing whatever’s big right now (maybe Toy Story 3 is still playing? What’s good?) and probably sitting out in the backyard of the townhouse and doing a little sunbathing.

Should be fun!