The Joy of Giving

It all started more than thirty years ago with an unexpected call from a member of the Tufts University Alumni Association to William O’Reilly, A77, A13P. “You don’t know me, but I’ve heard about you,” the voice on the other end said. “And I think you should get involved.”

“The next thing I knew, I was trying to help run a reunion,” O’Reilly recalled. That was the first step in a long, productive, and happy post-graduate relationship with his alma mater—organizing reunions and homecomings; networking; and eventually, a two-year stint as president of the TUAA, followed by thirteen years on the Board of Trustees. “I always felt I got as much out of volunteering as I put into it,” he said. “I learned a lot from the dedicated, smart people I worked with.”

O’Reilly stepped down from the trustees in the fall of 2017, but he continues to serve Tufts—“my wife says I’m a serial volunteer”—as chair of annual giving for Brighter World. “If past is prologue, over 95 percent of the people who participate in this campaign will do so through annual giving,” O’Reilly said. Annual fund donors can have impact on issues or areas of scholarship that are particularly important to them, O’Reilly said. And annual fund gifts can be immediately put to work by the university, “so donors have the joy of knowing their impact is immediate.”

It’s that impact that fuels O’Reilly’s long connection to the university. “Tufts produces the people and the scholarship and the ideas that will have a really positive impact on society,” he said. In his own life, O’Reilly was inspired by professors Dan Dennett, Hugo Bedau, and Sol Gittleman. “The way those people thought about the world, their approach to problem solving, still has an impact on me.” O’Reilly is a partner in the Boston office of the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, and a board member for Tufts Hillel, the Boston Museum of Science, and Beaver Country Day School. “I tell young lawyers in my firm that they will make connections and grow personally and professionally if they volunteer, in a way that they can’t by spending another few hours in the office,” he said. “I told my fellow trustees when they thanked me for my service that I am confident that I am a better lawyer and a better person for having worked side by side with them in a volunteer capacity.”