Paying It Forward
Astrophysicist Tom Soifer (BS '68), Caltech's Harold Brown Professor of Physics, Emeritus, knows it can take some time after graduation to recognize the transformative value of a Caltech education.
"It wasn't until I moved back and joined the faculty that I gained a much greater appreciation for the value of what Caltech does," says Soifer, who returned to the Institute as a senior research fellow a decade after earning a bachelor's degree and has spent his career at Caltech including as director of the Spitzer Science Center and chair of the Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy. "That's when I started giving back monetarily."
Now, he encourages students to join the community of supporters who are essential to sustaining Caltech's excellence in teaching, research, and scholarship and start the habit of donating before they leave campus. For many years, Soifer has matched donations to senior class gift funds. That match, in turn, encourages undergraduates to make a gift prior to commencement.
"My thinking was that if they make a small donation at the time of their graduation, sometime later when they have more resources and a better appreciation of what they got from Caltech, they might be willing to give more. Matching is a way to encourage the initial donations," he explains.
It was Soifer's belief in the power of habit-building that led to the recent creation of the Craig SanPietro Class of '68 Fund for the Senior Gift & Recent Alumni Giving.
Supporting Early Giving
"Tom had this idea for an endowment that would be a matching fund for senior gifts for years to come," says Eric Garen (BS '68), who has stayed in touch with Soifer through his work in astrophotography. "Our hope is that they would then continue to give in their early alumni years to develop a lifelong habit right out of school."
Garen was part of a group of classmates that Soifer approached during reunion weekend in 2023 to get involved with fundraising for an endowed fund, which requires a $100,000 commitment.
"Caltech gave me a wonderful education, taught me to think, and opened a lot of doors, which ultimately led to a lot of success for me," says Garen, who cofounded Learning Tree International, a company that offers corporate training solutions for IT professionals and managers. "But I didn't realize how many wonderful people I would meet there, and it turns out that was the biggest benefit of having gone to Caltech."
Honoring a Classmate
Craig SanPietro (BS '68, MS '69), who passed away in late December 2022, was one of those lifelong friends for Garen. He was also a thoughtful supporter of the Institute, so when it came to naming the new fund to encourage early giving, Soifer, Garen, and others from the class of 1968 wanted to pay tribute to his legacy.
"Craig did a really valuable thing as a donor, and one would hope that this fund will ultimately help other people become valuable donors to Caltech," Soifer says.
Among SanPietro's many contributions to the Institute, he endowed multiple scholarships with preference for students who had lost one or more parent. He also endowed a competitive travel prize that enables students to travel abroad during their summers, and another program that helps undergraduate students gain paid summer internships at technology companies.
"He was a brilliant guy—one of the brightest in our class—but most importantly he was extremely generous in giving back in a number of ways to Caltech," Garen says. "Craig was orphaned before he got to Caltech, so he felt strongly about supporting similarly affected students, along with others looking for new experiences."
Building Legacies
The Craig SanPietro Class of '68 Fund for the Senior Gift & Recent Alumni Giving has met the minimum required to become an endowed fund, which means it will be invested and its annual payout will provide support for matching gifts in perpetuity.
"It's an idea that could have a lot of leverage," Garen says. "If it does encourage more seniors to give, then there's a good chance that a larger number of them will become alumni donors. And over the years, the seed money that we put in will hopefully be dwarfed by the amount of money that will be raised by those students who were encouraged to begin their philanthropy to Caltech because of the matching gift."
Soifer points out that the matching gift fund is not about the amount a student gives but about supporting early alumni giving.
"It's about getting a mechanism into their brains, either conscious or unconscious, that Caltech was extremely beneficial for their lives, and that maybe there's a way for them to help, to return, to give back," Soifer says.
If you would like to contribute to The Craig SanPietro Class of '68 Fund for the Senior Gift & Recent Alumni Giving, we invite you to contact Brian Yocum, senior director of development, at (626) 395-5705 or [email protected].