What is WP-ORG & Why Donate?
 


"WP-ORG is an Internet community of 27,000 West Point graduates, parents of cadets and midshipmen, and friends of West Point and Annapolis. WP-ORG provides valuable information and communication resources to this community--free of charge--through scores of websites and listservices in support of most USMA classes, West Point Societies, and West Point Parent Clubs. Two of the more active listservices WP-ORG supports include WP-Forum, a moderated list open to USMA grads of any year group and rank; and Parent Forum, a moderated list for USMA parents to learn about West Point and exchange information and questions with other parents. WP-ORG is also host to cadet activity and sport listservices.

The initial structure of WP-ORG was developed by Ditus Bolanos '90. From the beginning WP-ORG has grown in response to the West Point Community's requests for additional support and service. A Board of Advisors including eleven USMA graduates and two cadet parents ('02 & '04,'05,'07) oversee the day-to-day operations at WP-ORG. Our cadet parent Advisor fills another role at WP-ORG as a full-time employee responsible for handling feedback messages received through the WP-ORG website. Dian Welle and Megan Klein are the customer service face of WP-ORG.

Our purpose at WP-ORG is to support the communication needs of the Service Academy Community.

WP-ORG has developed the functionality to provide all 40,000 living West Point graduates with a Personal Homepage (PHP) that converts, upon the death of a graduate, to a Eulogy page for the gathering and display of testimonials and pictures from classmates, family and friends.

We support online payment sites for the collection of Society and Parent Club dues as well as registration for club and society events.

A recurring question is, "How much should I contribute to WP-ORG?". The average individual contribution has been rising for the past 3 years from about $30 to a little over $50 now. Our goal, however, is to double the participation. WP-ORG encourages those who use its services to consider a contribution that reflects the value they receive from the WP-ORG services they use. The key to expanding your knowledge and your use of WP-ORG services is to study the WP-ORG homepage and simply click away and explore the functionality provided. The homepage is located at: http://www.west-point.org. Please take a few moments to check it out.

WP-ORG is a completely separate entity and is independent of USMA and the Association of Graduates. WP-ORG does work closely with both as it serves our primary interest of serving the West Point Community. Through the Feedback links on WP-ORG webpages, hundreds of queries are received from high school students, scholars, former military, and other citizens of the world seeking information about West Point. Remember our web site has West Point in its name and USMA's and the AOG's do not. This was not by design, as WP-ORG started nine years ago with the name AOG.net. That name became important to the AOG when they moved to have an internet presence. WP-ORG is quick to pass to the appropriate USMA or AOG official those queries more appropriately answered by these representatives.

WP-ORG is a labor of love of your classmates and friends. Our semi-annual fundraisers maintain existing WP-ORG resources, provide for the scheduled upgrade of hardware, and fund the development of new offerings to support the West Point community. The network architecture at WP-ORG has recently been redesigned to take advantage of open-source software and technology that makes more efficient use of hardware. This change, combined with a gradual migration from tower to rack-mount servers, has cut our hardware footprint to 1/8th of its previous size. Our imminent move to a co-location facility will double our bandwidth to the internet for the same price we currently pay. Responsibility for the environment surrounding our equipment and its physical security will be assumed by the facility. We will also be establishing offsite backup servers in Dallas and Los Angeles. At the same time our backend is being upgraded, you will notice a facelist to the public face of WP-ORG. Our homepage has been moved to Joomla and now hosts continually updating West Point associated news. Joomla templates for class, society and parent club websites are under development and will be available within this next six-month cycle. So look for the changes and be sure to tell us what you think.

Fund Drive 22 focuses on raising money to support our employees, primarily tasked with the migration and facelift of WP-ORG, operational expenses, system upgrades and a cushion providing for unforeseen failures.

Our current budget may be seen here:
http://www.west-point.org/budget

WP-ORG, Inc. is recognized by the IRS as a 501(C)(3) Non-Profit Organization. 100% of your donation is tax deductible.

Thank you for your continued support. We operate only through your generosity.
Donate at:

or mail to:

WP-ORG
23802 Oscar Road
Spicewood TX 78669

What Services Are Offered by WP-ORG?

Two System Engineers; Megan Price, in Austin, working on service-enhancement projects, and Dian Welle, in Idaho, who handles the day-to-day requests from our members.

Full point-to-point T1 channel to the Internet.

Personal Homepages for every graduate of USMA.
  http://www.west-point.org/users

Ward Book Living History pages for every graduate of USMA.  
  http://wardbook.west-point.org

Eulogy sites that are a class tribute to those who have left the class behind.
  http://www.west-point.org/taps/

POP/FTP accounts for all USMA graduates.
  http://www.west-point.org/service/pop-users/
  http://www.west-point.org/service/ftpusers/

AltAlias (personalized email addresses) for all USMA grads.
  http://www.west-point.org/users/altalias

WebMail for all West Point Graduates.
  https://webmail.west-point.org

USMA Class Support for the classes from 1935 to present day (website hosting to include a selection of content management systems, listservice hosting and tailored reunion registration and payment).
  http://www.west-point.org/class/
Example: USMA 1987 Website

West Point Society Support (website hosting to include a selection of content management systems, listservice hosting, online dues payment and event registration and payment).
  http://www.west-point.org/society
Example: The West Point Society of Atlanta

Parent Club Support (website hosting to include a selection of content management systems, listservice hosting, online dues payment and event registration and payment).
  http://www.west-point.org/parent.html
http://www.west-point.org/parent/parent_clubs.html
Example: The West Point Parents Club of Indiana

Multiple cadet-parent listservices for over 2,300 parents.
  http://www.west-point.org/parent/parent-forum/

The WP-ORG Online Store.
  http://gradstore.west-point.org/index.html

WP-ORG Credit Card Transaction Interfaces.
  http://lazarus.west-point.org/wporg/credit_card
Example: USMA 1995 Reunion Registration

Listservice Moderator Training.
  http://www.west-point.org/service/moderator-training