17³Ô¹Ï

Dear fellow 17³Ô¹Ïmembers and friends:

As the graph above illustrates, one of the reasons that 17³Ô¹Ïhas thrived over the past few years is the amazing support that we receive from our members. We are unique among learned societies in having almost 1 in 4 members who make a charitable gift over and above their membership dues. We also have an extremely high percentage of members who donate their time to help make us great.

As we move near the end of our fiscal year (June 30), please consider joining 400 of your fellow members and friends in making a gift to ASOR. Our goal is to have 410 discrete donors for Fiscal Year 2016. As you consider joining us as a donor, I wanted to share some of the things that your membership dues and charitable donations have enabled us to accomplish over the past year:

• We held an extremely successful Annual Meeting in 2015, and we have more paper proposals than ever before for the 2016 meeting.
• We continued to publish three journals that carry out our mission to disseminate knowledge about the Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds.
• We published three volumes in the Archaeological Reports and 17³Ô¹ÏAnnual series.
• We provided two Harris Grants of $5,000 each to support field projects. We provided a Mesopotamian Fellowship of $7,000 research in cuneiform studies. We also awarded a Dever Fellowship of $7,000 so that a non-tenured biblical scholar could have extensive experience in archaeology.
• We announced the establishment of the Joe D. Seger Endowment for support of archaeological projects. We also saw the endowments for the Strange/Midkiff, Meyers, and MacAllister Funds continue to grow with new gifts.
• We continued to award scholarships that enable students and junior scholars to participate in archaeological fieldwork.
• We established two new, named awards at the Annual Meeting: The Joy Ungerleider Poster Award and the Nancy Lapp Popular Book Award.
• We created an Undergraduate Membership category and now offer a discounted membership rate for new non-North American student members to make membership more accessible and affordable for students.
• We provided 16 scholarships for students and junior scholars to attend the Annual Meeting.

We also continued our increasingly important work in protecting and preserving the cultural heritage of the Near East and wider Mediterranean:

• We were recognized internationally as a leader in advocating for the protection and safeguarding of cultural heritage. Our programs have been acknowleged by both UNESCO General Secretary Irina Bokova and U. S. Secretary of State John Kerry.
• We played an instrumental role in advocating for the passage of H.R. 1493—a bill that gives the same protection to looted antiquities from Syria as is given to items from Iraq.
• We co-sponsored a World Heritage Day event at the Smithsonian Institution and held a special symposium the prior evening at The George Washington University Elliott School, where we launched the Cultural Heritage Monitor—a crowd-sourcing web app to aid anonymous reporting of heritage damage and looting.
• We played a significant leadership role in bringing cultural heritage groups together work collaboratively, and this work was publically recognized by NEH Chairman William Adams.
• We signed a cooperative agreement with the German Archaeological Institute for the sharing of our heritage inventories and research in Syria. We also signed a cooperative agreement with the Getty Conservation Institute to work collaboratively on the development of Arches—an open source geospatial tool that is available online.
• We were proud to have 17³Ô¹ÏCultural Heritages Initiatives Academic Director Michael Danti testify before Congress about the looting and trafficking of antiquities.

Also:

• We completed a strategic planning process that will help us become even more effective in carrying out our mission.
• We were recognized by the NEH and ACLS as one of the organizations that most effectively demonstrates the relevancy of the humanities in the 21st century.
• We received a legacy gift of almost $75,000 from the Wendell W. Weir estate that provided crucial support for ASOR’s general endowment.
• Most important, we continued to support our members in their research and professional endeavors.

Your contribution, regardless of whether it is $10, $50, $1,000, or $5,000, is significant and meaningful. The aggregate contributions will help 17³Ô¹Ïachieve our goals. Your individual gifts will also help us maintain a high donor participation, which is crucial for attracting large donations from foundations and individual donors.

Thank you for your consideration.

Best regards,
Andy Vaughn
17³Ô¹ÏExecutive Director

Other ways you can donate:

Donate by Phone

Call 17³Ô¹Ï(number temporarily unavailable until June 29th)

Donate by Mail

Send a check to:

ASOR
P. O. Box 15729
Boston, MA 02215

Make a Pledge (Donate Later)

Send an e-mail to ASOR