Annual Fund for Sigma Xi's Future

Please give to the annual fund, for our next generation of researchers

I think the first thing that we need in order to get ahead
as young scientists is a strong support network, a support
network of other scientists. I would say that Sigma Xi
is the only friend to the inexperienced scientist out there.
—Ted Uyeno, Biology Graduate Student
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Encouraging and supporting the next generation of researchers. That is perhaps the most important activity in which Sigma Xi members have traditionally been engaged. Your gift to the Society's annual fund will help secure the future for that generation of research scientists and engineers and subsequent generations.

You can help us achieve this goal. Act now by clicking here to help support Sigma Xi's Annual Fund.

This financial year 2008, would you please consider a tax-deductible gift to support the next generation of researchers.

Where have previous gifts gone? And where will your gift go this year?

Your financial support will help advance the careers of the next generation of researchers. Your donation will help support the Society's programs to help prepare tomorrow's scientists, teachers, entrepreneurs, health professionals and others to contribute intelligently and compassionately to human well-being. In fact, none of our programs would be possible without your help.

These programs include our Grants-in-Aid of Research (GIAR). Did you know that since we founded the GIAR program in 1922, your support has made a difference for nearly 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students at a crucial time in their careers?

I received a Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid of Research.
This research let me go out into the field and get the
material that I analyzed for a publication. It was like
a bigger brother came by and put his hand on my
shoulder and said, You're worth the risk.
—Ted Uyeno, Biology Graduate Student,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

You probably still remember how stiff the competition was for grant funding when you were starting out. It's even more intense today. Your gift goes a long way towards helping promising young research scientists and engineers at the outset of their research careers.

It's an international research society, and the fact that someone
believes that I belong there is a very integral part of the process.
—Samantha Palmer, Biology Student. Ithaca College

Additional support goes towards helping those students actually write their grants. As the competition for grants has increased, so have the skills required to put pen to paper. By helping fund grant-writing skills workshops, you help give students the edge they need to compete for those necessary research funds.

I have taken the grant-writing course myself
and I felt it was very useful. I learned really to
understand how the rules are in that grant world.
—Lisbeth Hamer, Microbial Biotechnology Program,
North Carolina State University

One of the key strengths of Sigma Xi is helping develop strong support networks for young scientists. Your support helps our chapters finance their local student research conferences, where young scientists can not only present their latest research, but also network among scientists and engineers from all disciplines, and help them find their job of the future.

What I'm hoping to get out of this is to meet scientists, to help my
networking ability, and to hopefully get a better job in the future.
—Leah Haibi, Biochemistry Student, Quinnipiac University

And where would Sigma Xi be without our chapter base? Other science-related organizations envy our chapter base. Chapters are a key strength of Sigma Xi - that's our grassroots heritage, where young researchers are given a helping hand along their early research path.

We really encourage undergraduate students to do
research and by having an active chapter of Sigma Xi, what
that allows us to do is to provide special recognition for the
students who sort of go above and beyond what the normal
level of participation in research is.
—Vicki L. Cameron, Biology Professor, Ithaca College

Did you know that the number of young women scientists and engineers being inducted into Sigma Xi now exceeds the number of men? But that after five to ten years into their career, we lose many of them? And that means trouble for the future of our modern global workforce. Your gift helps us retain that talent, to ensure that our members are leaders in science and technology, working with their fellow researchers from all around the world.

I think Sigma Xi has an essential role to play in terms of young
women and other groups that are underrepresented in the sciences.
We can't possibly sustain a vibrant future for humankind if we're
only using under half of the talent that exists on this planet.
—Kathryn D. Sullivan, NASA astronaut
First American Woman to Walk in Space

Your gift also helps support your local chapter expand the Society's commitment to education. For example, by increasing the number and level of annual teacher awards for chapters to recognize outstanding K-12 science and math teachers - over 1,700 teachers have been recognized to date. Your gift will help expand the Science, Mathematics and Engineering Education (SMEE) grants available to chapters to support K-16 educational programs. Your gift will help chapters on a local level develop incentive and mentor programs to address the projected shortfall of more than 280,000 math and science teachers across the U.S. by 2015.

We have to reach out; we have to get youngsters
excited about science while they're in grade school. If we don't
let them know that science is important, if we don't get them
engaged with science, that science is fun - and if we don't do that
in grade school, we're never going to do it for them when they're in
high school orcollege. We have to start early.
—Patrick D. Sculley, Sigma Xi Executive Director 2002-2006

Your gift helped support the Society's landmark survey of more than 7,600 postdocs at 46 research institutions. The survey's results helped improve the training and research environments for postdocs, by providing a better understanding of their experiences. Your gift will now help fund a five-year nationwide survey of 50,000 science and engineering undergraduates to ascertain the status and benefits of undergraduate research in the country.

I think Sigma Xi was helpful in two regards.
The [postdoc] survey itself and the major finding:
that structural oversight leads to greater productivity,
fewer conflicts, and greater satisfaction levels among postdocs.
—Alyson Reed, Executive Director, National Postdoctoral Association

Your gift helps bring science to the public, and to help the public explore the excitement and wonder of science! Your gift helps support the Sigma Xi chapters leading the Science Café movement. Cafés bring together scientists and members of the public in an accessible venue, putting them on equal footing to discuss current scientific research, its findings, context, caveats and implications. Your gift helps support Science in the News Daily - every weekday, we round up science-related news stories from the mainstream media and disseminate the Daily via e-mail to more than 10,000 scientists, decision makers, journalists, educators, students, and others. Your gift will help support a proposed partnership with the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing, to support continuing community-level dialogue between scientists and journalists in advancing the public understanding of science.

Sigma Xi needs to promote good science and the good
use of science. We live in a time when science is under assault,
and our Society and its membership need to provide both our
students as well as the public at large with information and a
factual basis for them to make decisions.
—James M. Porter, Sigma Xi President 2007-2008
University of Georgia

And last but not least, who can forget your award-winning magazine, American Scientist, the exemplification of excellence in print and electronic science communication! $24 of your annual dues goes towards publishing the Society's flagship publication. But that $24 doesn't fully cover your fellow members who are paying Student, Hardship or your own Emeritus dues, or even those who paid Life Membership. Your gift helps the magazine continue, and expand. Your gift will help create internships in science writing, editing and illustration, and fund enhancement of the magazine's outreach to an international audience via the Internet.

I think that the providing of information through
the venue of the American Scientist is extraordinarily
important to the members and always has been.
—M. Patricia Morse, Sigma Xi President 1989-1990
University of Washington

Please make your gift now!

It has been a strong feeling of mine that we
older ones who have, learned the satisfactions and the
value to society of scientific work should try to make
the way into science easier for promising young scientists.
—Calvin Fuller, Sigma Xi donor. Co-inventor of the Solar Cell

Please support our efforts again this FY2008, with your tax-deductible gift. You can help us develop the best possible support network for young researchers. The very researchers who will be our future world leaders in science and technology. Without your help, it will not be possible to expand the programs and activities your Society and chapters work so hard to offer.

Sigma Xi is committed to the future of scientific research and engineering. Please show your commitment. Act now by clicking here to help support Sigma Xi's Annual Fund.

Sigma Xi is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit. All donations made in the U.S. and Canada are tax-deductible.
EIN available upon request