The R. Howard Dobbs Jr. Foundation will fund Emory’s chapter of Alpha Tau Omega with $150,000 to help establish ATO’s endowment, which will provide need-based leadership grants for up to 15 ATO members.

ATO’s goal for its endowment is $300,000. The Dobbs Foundation announced last week that it will fund $150,000 on the condition that ATO raises the other half in the next two years.

ATO is currently working out its fund-raising initiatives with Emory’s Board of Trustees and the chapter’s Board of Trustees to meet its goal in the two-year period. The $300,000 raised for this endowment will be donated to Campaign Emory, then specified to ATO.

“We’re very excited that, number one, we were able to set the stage to be the first fraternity on campus to have an endowed fund for grants for brothers,” said ATO President Nicolai Lundy, “and also excited that we can, in our own way, contribute to Campaign Emory.”

The endowment will provide leadership development grants for brothers, which will pay for their member dues. A committee of alumni and the chapter president and vice president will evaluate brothers who have at least a 3.0 semester GPA and are in “good standing” — those who regularly attend weekly chapter meetings, participate in recruitment, have 15 community service hours each semester, paid all dues to Emory and to the national ATO, and do not have “significant” judicial, conduct code or honor code violations, Lundy said. Then the grant will be given to those with the highest financial needs.

The Dobbs Foundation grant is very competitive and selective, said Vice Provost for Academic Initiatives and Deputy to the Provost Santa Ono, who is also the faculty advisor for ATO. Ono said ATO was chosen for both Emory’s and ATO’s long history with Dobbs, after whom the Dobbs University Center is named. Dobbs paid $150,000 toward the renovation of the ATO house on Eagle Row in 1988.

“[The Foundation was] also very impressed by the engagement of the students in a lot of service activities,” Ono said, “[and] with the high academic standing of the entire brotherhood.”

Currently, ATO has an informal system of providing financial assistance to members. Adjustments have been made for members in the past who need help paying their chapter dues.

But the endowment can make the assistance permanent, Lundy said, and “would also significantly increase the way that the chapter could help out somebody in need.”

The leadership grant will be given out once a semester. After a fund-raising plan is set, Lundy said it will take at least a year for the endowment to take effect.

With the current financial crisis, Ono said that the contributions to ATO’s endowment through Campaign Emory will affect the Emory community as a whole.

“In the landscape of the economy, any contribution to financial aid will have a positive impact on the overall student body,” Ono said.

— Contact Michelle Ye Hee Lee.