Dear Alumni,

When Overseas Nanjing Medical University Alumni Association (ONMUAA) was 
organized, it was felt that a strict membership registration process 
including a mandatory membership due is too restrictive because nobody 
was sure at that time whether ONMUAA can really function well.  After 
several months' test running, ONMUAA is clearly progressing very rapidly 
in linking alumni from every corner of the world.  More and more alumni 
have participated our activities, including several local reunions, 
several homepages integrated under the ONMUAA's name, formal registration 
in California, an official newsletter and a number of e-mail alumni 
directories with different emphasis.  

However, one major weakness of our organization is that we heavily rely 
on e-mail communication.  There are many alumni without e-mail access or 
have not connected to our e-mail network even though we may have their 
addresses or telephone numbers.  In order to contact them and hear their 
voices, it is important for ONMUAA to reach out by sending our information 
via postal mails to more alumni who either have not joined us or not 
frequently used e-mails.  Because of the financial constraint, very little 
has been done on this.  For the same reason, we don't know when we will 
be able to publish a nice alumni directory despite we will have over 300 
overseas alumni on the list.  Up to now, many activities of the association 
were supported by volunteering from many alumni, which otherwise could be 
costly.  However, no associations would be surviving without any financial 
support.  

We will explore all kinds of opportunities to raise funds for our 
operations including some simple business activites, such as making some 
sourvenirs about NMU or memorable items that alumni can purchase.  We 
will also look for corporate sponsors.   We hope alumni to contribute 
more ideas on this issue.  At the same time, we have already set up our 
account under the strict management of our finance department.  We sincerely 
hope our alumni can make your donation to our association.  

>From now on, each year the Executive Committee (EC) will issue a 
financial report as well as a call for donation from alumni.  Every 
year's fundraising letter will state its main spending purposes of the 
money.  

This first year's objectives are:
1) to send out postal mails to alumni who do not have e-mail access;
2) to print an alumni directory.  

The EC pledges that at least 80% of the donated money will be used for the above two purposes.  

There will also be clear rules that the donated fund can not be used for 
certain expenses such as travelling, dining, and telephone fee incurred by 
ONMUAA officers.  

Each year we will list on the ONMUAA homepage of the alumni names who 
have made their donations.  At this time, the donation is completely 
voluntary and you can decide the amount.  Please make your donation payable 
to "Oversea Nanjing Medical University Alumni Association (ONUMAA)" and
send the check to 

Ben-Quan Shen
2055 32nd Ave.
San Francisco CA 94116

or

Bei Chen
ms#19
Genentech Inc
SSF, CA 94080".   

A painless donation of $10-20 will go a long way toward supporting the ONMUAA, and uniting our alumni.  
You couldn't make a more meaningful donation than contributing to your 
own organization!  

Department of fundraising