A Challenge for Southern Studies Alums and Friends of the Center:

Possibilites Profile: Giving at Ole Miss
Susan Keith, Class of '01, Makes $100,000 Gift

   The Center is seeking new ways to encourage financial donations to strengthen its work, and one current student at the University offers a striking way of making a commitment. Susan Keith, a Long Beach, Mississippi, native and Ole Miss senior, has made a $100,000 gift to the University even before walking through the gates guiding her and her peers to graduation day. Susan’s gift is significant any way you look at it, and it is more remarkable still when you consider that she comes from a typical middle-class family of modest means. No, she didn’t win a lottery prize, and she didn’t strike it rich at the casinos. Instead, she has made a long-term commitment and low-cost pledge. She has endowed a scholarship in her grandmother’s name by purchasing a $100,000 life insurance policy with Ole Miss as the beneficiary. 

   At her age, Susan’s premium each month is only $58, or $652 per year. She figures she can afford this level of pledge to her university, and she’s used her considerable strategizing gifts to improve her situation still more. Susan has already been hired by KPMG, one of the top accounting firms in the country, and KPMG has a matching gifts plan for its employees. As a result, Susan’s monthly premium cost will drop by half, to $30, or $313 a year (discount possible with single payment approach). “I can afford this gift, and I like the idea of making a sizeable, long-term pledge of both my income and my interest to Ole Miss. The University has been generous to me insofar as it’s given me incredible scholarships that have enabled me to earn a great education and a fine start to my career and adult life. I am excited about this chance to show my gratitude in a way that will give back to Ole Miss a small part of what it has given me.”

   Susan’s model could be a precedent for students, recent alumni, or anyone who appreciates the Center’s work on the South. “I am hoping that others will see that they too can make a generous gift to Ole Miss, even if they are just starting out in life and wonder how they’ll ever afford such a commitment.  For a few dollars a month, they can become major donors too. I’m looking forward to continuing my relationship with my university, to being a part of its life wherever I go, whatever I do. This pledge will help me maintain my ties to Ole Miss while honoring my grandmother, Shreveport native Dorothy Graham Brown. I’m really pleased about that.  Both Ole Miss and my grandmother will always be a very special part of me, no matter where life leads me.”

Lesley Urgo

Photograph: Susan Keith (’01) Robin Brown Keith, and Dorothy Graham Brown