Dear CWA Supporter,
We hope that you, our supporters, and your families are holding up well during these difficult times.
All of us at the Conference on World Affairs were disappointed that we were not able to present 200 events and 100 speakers and performers this week as planned. We hope that you all were able to enjoy the virtual sessions that we are offered April 6-10 and are now available on our CWA YouTube channel. These sessions were assembled to provide you an opportunity to ask experts the health-related and economic questions on your minds as we all manage tremendous uncertainty.
We want to thank you for your financial support of the 2020 CWA, and to let you know how your support is being used. Despite the unanticipated cancellation of the 2020 CWA in the traditional form, we incurred many unreimburseable expenses (as did so many large conferences) related to venue rentals, advertising and marketing, merchandise, and other costs. These one-time sunk costs are in addition to our regular operating expenses for staffing, volunteer support, student stipends, and expenses associated with organizing and operating a large annual conference. We are very appreciative of your donation toward the 2020 Conference to help offset these costs. These gifts will also be used to help fund the Virtual CWA this week, to support our staff that has been managing these forced transitions, and underwrite potential Fall 2020 CWA sessions (live or via internet). We will also use any remaining 2020 CWA gifts toward moving speakers that can still join us, and transitioning content from the cancelled conference to April 2021.
We also want to share with you how your 2020 gift to CWA will be recognized. To acknowledge your generous support of the CWA in this time of need, your 2020 gift will be acknowledged in our monthly electronic newsletter, which is distributed to nearly 10,000 people throughout the country and around the world. In addition, any gifts made to CWA spanning the period March 1, 2019 to March 1, 2021 will be combined and acknowledged in our 2021 program. That is, any gift you made to support the 2020 conference will be combined with any gift you make from now until March 1, 2021 and this total will be acknowledged in next April’s printed program.
The planning for CWA 2021 has already begun in earnest, with most of the speakers we hoped to host this week committing to join us next April. The CWA is here and will be here for you; thanks for being here for us.
Kindest regards,
Leslie Durgin, Chair, CWA Development Committee and Community Outreach Chair
John Griffin, Faculty Director, Conference on World Affairs