Friends of UTokyo Has Begun Its 6th Annual Fundraising Campaign

We sincerely appreciate the support of alumni and friends in this campaign. Greetings from FUTI President and Director/Treasurer are shown below. The photo was taken at the Language Institute class at Yale attended by Ms. Izumi Hayashi, a FUTI award recipient of the past summer.IzumiHayashi_Class
 
HisashiKobayashi_150Dear Friends of UTokyo (FUTI):
I hope that this letter finds you well and thriving, although it is getting chilly in the morning and at night. As we reported in Newsletter No. 12, we provided financial support to 21 outstanding students in the 2014 Summer Scholarship Program. If you read their reports, https://www.friendsofutokyo.org/, you will find that the summer experiences have given them the first step of their leap towards the future. Such strides were possible solely because of the support from Shintech, Inc. and generous individuals like yourselves. I take this opportunity to thank you for your support again.
In New York and many other places in the world, alumni groups such as Akamon-kai and Icho-kai have been established as forums for social exchanges and friendships among the UTokyo alumni. Among all these groups, “Friends of UTokyo, Inc. (FUTI)” distinguishes itself in the sense that it is the only volunteer organization in which the alumni and friends execute actual programs that provide scholarships and research grants to financially support academic activities of UTokyo, driven by our desire to nurture as many UTokyo students as possible to become global leaders of tomorrow https://www.friendsofutokyo.org/about-us/what-is-futi/
I would like you to appreciate the good cause of FUTI and provide us your stronger support so that we can maintain these programs in 2015 as well.
Hisashi Kobayashi, President


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Dear Friends of UTokyo (FUTI):
It is the sixth year since we launched our fundraising effort with the objective to help the internationalization of UTokyo, and to identify and nurture such talents who can grow to become leaders of the future, by providing scholarship programs and promoting exchanges of young researchers. Because of the falling interest rates in recent years, however, the donations from Shintech’s Trust Fund that have been supporting our activities from the beginning have been on the decline. We fear that this trend will continue for a while and we now confront such difficult situations that might force us to downscale our programs.
The programs of FUTI which we have strived to establish now have real substance and quality and have become widely known not only to UTokyo students but also among students at reputable U.S. universities. In order just to sustain the current level of the programs, we must increase donations by as much as $30,000 to $40,000. Thus, we need to seek greater support from a larger number of people.
The simplest way to support us is to mail a check, or to use our online donation system by clicking https://www.friendsofutokyo.org/giving/donate-online and charging a donation to your credit card. If you wish to transfer fund to FUTI’s bank account, please contact us at donationatfriendsofutokyo.org. We will then provide you with such information as FUTI’s account number. Donations of securities (i.e. stocks and bonds) or donations from your IRA account may provide you with greater tax benefits than cash donations. Please consider such options and let us know at the same email address given above.
Director and Treasurer: Yuichiro Kuwama.