Giving Tuesday
/Donations for students in need going the extra mile
Tuesday November 28 2017 will see StFX’s first “Giving Tuesday.” Giving Tuesday is an “online fundraising blitz” where in the StFX advancement and development department will be encouraging alumni and friends of the school to donate towards student bursaries and student financial aid.
What is special about Giving Tuesday is that all donations received from first time donors and young alumni on this day will be doubled up to a maximum of 25,000 dollars. Young alumni are defined as fifteen years or under past their graduation date.
According to Wendy Langley, Director of Development and Alexa Zarins, Athletics Sponsorship & Fund Development Coordinator, the “University is running due to alumni giving back.”
When asked if Giving Tuesday would be a successful day of fundraising, Langley and Zarins replied that they think student financial aid will see a substantial influx of donations. They citied that McGill University received 1.3 million dollars during their last Giving Tuesday.
They also stated that they hope to use social media to raise awareness and market the day. The hashtag #ourstfx will be used extensively in order to promote donating.
StFX will also be the very first Atlantic University to stage a Giving Tuesday. Langley and Zarins made it clear that the goal wasn’t to raise as much money as possible but rather have the most amount of participation possible. For example, they stated that 2,000 gifts of any amount was the goal, further explaining that a twenty dollar gift was as good as a 1,000 dollar gift.
In order to achieve this goal and obtain as many gifts as possible to help students in need, the development office has created some unique incentives; for example, there will be online contests and a “game show challenge” where the winning team will receive a 1,000 dollar bursary to be donated back to StFX.
Throughout campus on this Tuesday there will also be tables set up with coffee and cupcakes as well as photo booths complete with spare change jars. The revenue earned from these jars will go towards the Student Food Resource Centre. The purpose of these tables is to engage the campus community and encourage those who are able to donate.
Langley and Zarins stated that major donations will not be collected on campus but online through the StFX website. Throughout the day University Vice Presidents and department deans will be writing and signing thank-you cards for alumni and friends of the school who donated. What is interesting about the thank-you card signing process is that it is the goal to have the person who signed the card to send it to a donor from the same geographical area.
For example, Alexa Zarins is from Ontario so the thank-you cards that she signed will be sent to donors from that province. The goal of this entire day is to help students who need bursaries and financial aid, in order to apply for donations received on Giving Tuesday, students must fill out an application with the financial aid office. All financial aid and bursaries are need based.
Alex Corrigan, fourth year student and co-President of the class of 2018 called Giving Tuesday “an incredible initiative” and that “it shows how powerful our alumni network is.” Corrigan also mentioned that “we all have a part in paying it forward.”
