JAVS Fall 2024

Development Corner

WE DID IT! YOU DID IT! WE DID IT TOGETHER!

Our AVS finance advisor has declared that The David Dalton Research Competition is now self-funded. That means our DDRC Endowment now spins off enough dividends and interest to cover the yearly awards. BRAVO —“WE” did it! It has been quite a journey, a journey of belief; a belief in our organization, a belief in our mission, and a belief in the core AVS principles that inspires excellence and builds community through viola study, performance, research, composition, and lutherie. This journey began some 25 years ago, in 1999, in a leadership effort to actualize the original name of our organization “The Viola Research Society,” and to honor our third AVS President—long serving JAVS Editor and prolific contributor to our journal and the viola world a large, David Dalton. “WE” started modestly with some small prizes— monetary and in-kind—paid out of the AVS General Fund. But before long, Tom and Polly Tatton volunteered to cover the monetary prize. In 2013 an anonymous donor came forward and offered to help establish an endowment and the David Dalton Viola Research Competition Endowment was created. With a matching grant program, the goal was to make the DDRC self funded. The first push was led by our anonymous donor, David Bynog (then Editor of JAVS ), and Tom and Polly Tatton; the effort was wonderfully successful. Our first monetary goal was met…yet interest rates and dividends soon became somewhat meager, and leadership wanted to encourage scholars with a competitive increase to the small dollar amount of the award. Thus, in 2021, the contemporary leadership initiated the DDRC Giving Circle with a funding goal of $10,000.

“WE” exceeded that goal!

Well, just who are the “ WE ?”

We are violists who value and want to support student scholarship; we are friends, colleagues, admirers, family, and extended family of David Dalton; we are current and former AVS leaders who wanted to honor our AVS founding; we are many former DDRC laureates; and, surprising as this may seem, we are not all violists, but many who heard about the effort and wanted to support youthful musical scholarship. In truth, we are a community of dozens of donors over the years that somehow fit into more than one of the above categories. We honor your gift, whether it was $5.00 or $1,000. Your gift has now made—and will continue to make—a difference in the lives of youthful violists far into the future! Over the years many of our laureates have sent in heartfelt notes, mentioning how their award was so encouraging and became a springboard to their careers. Those notes are most meaningful and heartwarming!

“We” did it together. “We” could not be more delighted. Thank You!

And now, with the holidays and Giving Tuesday approaching, please look out for a new funding initiative launching soon on the AVS website and social media. Full details will be announced in the Spring issue of JAVS. Onward and upward, on behalf of the viola

Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 40, No. 2, Fall 2024

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