Who Funds Kyle?

With its catchy "I agree with Kyle" slogan and its ubiquitous posters, T-shirts, and newspaper ads, this month's "Jesus Week" campaign focused campus attention on Christianity.

But the publicity came with a price tag--around $3,000.

And while most student groups struggle to raise cash, the organizers of Jesus Week say they managed to raise the staggering sum in little more than a week.

The Christian alumni who funded the event say their loyalty to their alma mater and their religious ties combined to lead them to fund a campaign significantly larger than many groups' annual budgets.

"I'm sure you've heard of 'ask and you shall be given,' and 'seek and ye shall find,'" says Benjamin D. Grizzle '03, who raised money for the weeklong celebration of Christianity. "It's amazing what you can get if you just ask."

Stumping for the Cross

Jesus Week organizers put together the publicity campaign most student groups can only dream of.

By the time the campaign concluded in as M. Kyle Sims '02 discussed the role Christianity has played in his life in front of the Science Center, the group had postered extensively, printed its own T-shirts and run a full-page ad in The Crimson.

The cost of these events far exceeded the around $500 most student groups get in grants from the Undergraduate Council or the College.

One reason for the campaign's comparative financial success may be that other groups simply fail to take advantage of their alumni resources.

"I've been on the finance committee for two years, and have been through hundreds of group applications, and I rarely saw student groups making good use of alumni," says Kyle D. Hawkins '02, former chair of the council's finance committee.

The donors for Jesus Week, most of them Harvard alums or parents of students, say they felt compelled to give money in order to boost the visibility of religious students on campus. Some say they are concerned that Harvard is suspicious--if not hostile--toward overt displays of religion at the University.

"People felt that when they came to Harvard, they were moving from a childhood of superstition into an adulthood of rationality," says Mark S. Campisano '75, recalling that many of his classmates felt that they had outgrown the religion that they learned as children.

Campisano, who was not religious while he was in college, now heads up a group at the Harvard Club of New York City that discusses the Christian perspective on ethical dilemmas men face in their business lives.

He says he is worried that Harvard students, caught up in understanding the world in a rational and deductive manner, might miss out on some of its spiritual truths.

"I felt that I had been very hostile towards Christianity when I was in college, and I wanted to make sure that it was getting a fair hearing today," he says.

Other alums who gave money say the felt that Christians were an embattled minority at Harvard.

Stephen H. Galebach, a 1979 graduate of Harvard Law School, says he gave to the Kyle campaign because he was "impressed that today's undergrads have the courage to share their faith in Christ."

"I certainly didn't when I was in the law school," he wrote in an e-mail message.

Keeping the Faith

Larger, more established student groups typically have an easier time raising funds from their alumni, says current Finance Committee Chair John P. Marshall '01.

Smaller groups often don't have a loyal network of potential donors from which to draw he says.

But Grizzle says raising money for the Kyle campaign was easy.

"The money came in so quickly that no one else had to ask," he says. "I sent out one e-mail and it just got passed around."

Although Grizzle knew some of the donors quite well--his father donated money, as did his hometown church--he admits he doesn't know how some of the other donors found out about the event.

Grizzle says he suspects some people may have found about the campaign through an e-mail list his father created.

"I was impressed that Catholics and Protestants were cooperating to focus at Easter time on what they have in common. That's a good development that has impact far beyond Harvard," says Galeback, who Grizzle says he did not know before the Kyle campaign began.