The All Academy Challenge (AAC) has been a great success over the past eight years for all five federal service academies. Academy alumni have stepped up each year, increasing participation while providing valuable current use dollars for our institutions. Army, Air Force, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine have been terrific colleagues and worthy opponents.
The Challenge has driven support for your class projects, the Naval Academy Fund, and many other key impact areas. Since its inception, the AAC yielded nearly $10 million from almost 27,000 alumni gifts. That astounding effort has been possible thanks to the incredible class leadership, communication and outreach from each of you.
2022 will mark a significant change for the Challenge. All the service academies want to build on the excitement and momentum that eight years of the AAC have generated, but each school wants to target their efforts more toward the needs of their respective academy.
We’ll be launching our own Naval Academy Challenge this May. Rather than compete with our sister academies, this year we will focus on leveraging the great USNA intra-class competition that has evolved each year. Will 2022 be the year that some class can top ’65 in participation? Can ’84 maintain the top spot for total alumni donors? We’ll just have to see how it plays out!
Be on the lookout for the save the date and additional communication surrounding this prior to the challenge kickoff, including communication from each of your class presidents. If you’d like to be involved in getting the word out this year, please reply to this email to let us know.
Get ready for an even stronger Challenge and may the best class win!
V/r,
Rusty Yeiser
Captain, U.S. Navy (Ret.) ’74
Senior Director, Annual Giving Programs