The Beta Gamma Sigma Emergency Membership Fund

It is a great honor to receive an invitation to join Beta Gamma Sigma and it is our hope all eligible students will accept the membership they’ve earned. Unfortunately, some students simply cannot afford the membership fee and have to decline membership. To assist students who cannot afford the membership fee, several BGS chapters have created a special fund (or have access to funds) to cover this cost. Some of these chapters indicate students re-pay the fee in the future when they are established in their careers. We hope that more BGS chapters will consider creating a similar fund.

For students invited to membership who cannot afford the membership fee and the chapter cannot cover the fee locally, the Society has established the Beta Gamma Sigma Emergency Membership Fund to assist eligible students to obtain membership. The fund was originally established with BGS staff contributions and this summer a fundraising appeal was sent to more than 20,000 members for donations to the fund. As a result of these efforts, BGS is able to provide 50 memberships for the first half of the 2009-10 fiscal year (7/1 – 12/31/09). For the second half of the fiscal year we expect this number to grow (at least 50) and will notify chapters of the number of memberships in the January 2010 Connection.

Funds available to chapters for 2009:

For guidelines on utilizing this fund for your chapter’s deserving students, visit
http://www.betagammasigma.org/emf.htm