A Day of Giving Recap

Starting from 7 a.m. on Oct. 10. and ending Oct. 11 at 2:30 p.m., Utah State University has finished its Day of Giving for 2024 on all campuses.  

This is the sixth annual Day of Giving.  

 “A Day of Giving is our university-wide day of fundraising,” said Sophia Mann, the Annual Giving Coordinator. “We fundraise throughout the entire year, but this is one day where we really focus on getting everyone as involved as we can.”  

 While it is an annual event, each year has differences. For example, it is often 24 hours but this year is the first time the event is longer, being 1888 minutes. 1888 was chosen as that was the year that USU was founded.  

 “Most universities started fundraising on Giving Tuesday,” said Jonathan Young, the Director of Annual Giving. “Because of how many different organizations are competing against each other, we shifted it to homecoming week.”  

 Each college, as well as a wide range of student and university organizations such as USU Athletics, the Office of Global Engagement, and USU Student Media, participated in raising money for their own causes. 

 Many of these were to fund scholarships.  

 “Majority of them [scholarships] are funded by donors,” said Young. “This is another day to raise as much money as we can for scholarships.” 

 However, some groups decided to fundraise for other causes.  

 “The College of Agriculture chose to focus on the snack pantry. The Art Museum on campus chose to focus on their teaching program,” said Mann.  

 Perhaps one of the most noteworthy is the Student Alumni Association, which chose to forgo a senior gift this year to instead fundraise for the Snack pantry.  

 The total amount of how much was raised is still unknown, as the Day of Giving team is still counting, as well as the existence of mail-in donations that are still flowing in. 

 “We had a mailer solicitation pre-launch that people are still mailing in,” said Young.  

As of Oct 21, the current estimate of how much was raised is $336,319, while the current estimate of the number of participants is 700 people, who gave 869 donations, indicating that some donors gave gifts to multiple areas. 

That said, due to the fact that the donations and donors are still being counted, as well as the continuous flow of mail-in donations, a final count might not come around until as late as late in November.  

Many of the colleges had separate areas to donate to, such as different departments or institutes. Furthermore, breakdowns of who donated can be found. According to Young, the College of Humanities and Social Science found that 42% of donations were given by alumni, 12% from Faculty, 5% from students, and a combined 6% from friends and family.  

Many of the organizations and colleges at the Day of Giving had donor goals, but it was a mixed bag of whether or not that goal was reached.  

 “Athletics goal was 100 donors. They exceeded that and hit 102,” said Young. “College of Agriculture, their goal was for 40 donors. They hit that. CHASS hit their goal. Engineering hit their goal. Education hit their goal.”  

One of the unique groups was USU Eastern, which held a competition between the Carbon Community College Alumni and the new USU Eastern Alumni to see who could raise the most, doubling the amount they had in previous years.  

 According to Young, part of this year’s success was a change in platform. The platform is a website called Give Campus. Universities can set up pages on the site, enabling them to crowdfund there. One of the unique features is that the website tracks not only donations but social media shares. If a person shares the link, and people click on and donate, the Give Campus records it, encouraging people to advocate, even if they themselves didn’t donate.  

 While the donations were done digitally or through mail, much of the outreach was done both digitally with emails or in person with tables where students were told of the event. 

“We have so many different campuses, and one thing that’s really good about this is that it sort of unites everyone,” said Mann.  

 Young agrees with that statement. 

 “Get involved in a day of giving,” said Young. “Besides benefiting students, it’s a great way to support the college you went to.” 

 The event website, ADayofGiving.usu.edu is still active, however, it will soon be refreshed to accept new donations for next year’s Day of Giving.