[SIGCIS-Members] Give SIGCIS Your Money (please) - planned Mahoney Prize

[Thomas Haigh]

Hello SIGCIS Members,

 

SIGCIS does not have membership dues, but if you have found our activities
and resources useful over years then I hope you will consider making a
donation to our Mahoney Fund. Details at www.sigcis.org/Mahoney. This
message marks the public launch of Phase II of our fundraising, intended to
support the launch of the Mahoney Prize: an annual article prize for an
outstanding article on the history of information technology. 

 

The fund was set up in 2008 to honor that late Michael S. Mahoney, a
Princeton professor and central figure in the history of computing
community. It began with a five year pledge from Ann Johnson, one of
Mahoney's students.  Thanks to the generous support of our community by the
end of 2012 we had accumulated $14,400 from donations and investment
returns. We are treating this balance as a quasi-endowment to support the
Michael S. Mahoney Travel Awards, of which six have so far been made to
student presenters at the SIGCIS workshops.

 

Our new goal is to grow the accumulated balance to at least $25,000 during
the four year period 2013-2016. That will ensure that we can support the new
Mahoney Award indefinitely without compromising our support for graduate
students. Awards and prizes of this kind are probably the most cost
effective investments possible in the future of our field as they help to
build competitive resumes and integrate the winners into our scholarly
community. Thus even a pledge at one of the lower levels could still make a
real  difference. This use of the fund's resources for an article prize
seems particularly fitting as Mahoney made his own contribution to our field
via a series of influential articles and book chapters.

 

Over the past month I've made individual appeals to our existing donors to
sign on as pre-launch supporters of the new campaign. I've been pleasantly
surprised by their enthusiasm and generosity. Most of those I contacted made
pledges of support, often within an hour or two of me clicking "send," and
usually for a series of for annual contributions. I'd like to thank Joseph
November, Thomas L. Drucker, James W. Cortada, Jonathan Coopersmith, Richard
T. Snodgrass, Wendy Vogenitz Tinsley, Daniel J. Feldman, Angela Creager,
Andrew Russell, Paul Ceruzzi and Burton Grad for their recently pledged
donations.

 

With their support we have moved towards our goal faster than I had dared to
hope. However the current pledges will not, in themselves, be enough to
reach the $25,000 goal. 

 

That is where you come in. All donations are managed and invested by SHOT,
so you can be sure that the money will be treated responsibly and that you
will receive the usual tax benefits for a charitable contribution (if you
are a US taxpayer who can claim charitable contributions). SHOT strongly
prefers donations to be made by check (details and address on the web at
www.sigcis.org/Mahoney) but if you would like to contribute and do not have
a U.S. checking account then contact me for alternative arrangements. 

 

An article prize is something we have been discussing since at least 2007
but have never secured the resources to endow. As you may remember, Andrew
Russell will be taking over from me as SIGCIS chair at next year's SHOT
meeting. I'd like to deliver the SIG in the best shape possible. Collecting
enough pledges from our members to send a formal proposal for the new prize
to SHOT's executive council would free Andy from having to begin his term
dealing with unfinished business.

 

Thanks again to all those who have given to SIGCIS over the years whether in
response to my recent messages, over the first five years of the Mahoney
Fund, or at our annual meeting events.

 

Tom Haigh (SIGCIS Chair)

www.tomandmaria.com/tom 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/attachments/20131125/26dd00f4/attachment-0001.htm>