Grace Montgomery
Contributing Writer
Giving Tuesday is an international day of giving that takes place the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. In the spirit of the holidays, the day was created to inspire charitable giving for worthy causes. The College of Wooster began their fundraising campaign called #GivingWooDays on Giving Tuesday, Nov. 27.
“#GivingWooDays is an opportunity for The College of Wooster community to celebrate the Wooster experience. For the past six years, the College has used Giving Tuesday as an opportunity to encourage alumni, parents and friends to make a gift to The Wooster Fund, during #GivingWooDays,” said Jean Roberts, director of annual giving for the Gault Alumni Center.
“#GivingWooDays is a great opportunity to celebrate the donors that make the Wooster experience possible,” added Kathleen Moore, assistant director of annual giving.
For the past six years, #GivingWooDays has only been a 24 hour period of giving on Giving Tuesday. However, starting this year, the period was extended to 99 hours.
“We were able to reach our highest dollar amount given during the challenge — $422,083. Even more importantly, we were able to reach over 20,000 individuals via our social media channels and educate them about the College and the impact they can make through a gift to The Wooster Fund,” Roberts said.
According to the Wooster Alumni Community website, The Wooster Fund supports “virtually every program on campus, and therefore is a gift that benefits every student, every day.”
“Our focus this year was to educate the College community about The Wooster Fund in a way that was engaging and offered plenty of opportunities to celebrate what the Wooster experience means to each individual. We learned our Wooster community is incredibly passionate about this College and they are more than willing to share their tartan pride,” Roberts explained.
From Nov. 27-30, people could donate to The Wooster Fund for the campaign. The goal was to reach 570 donors, or one donor representing each student in the class of 2022, according to the official website. Donors could give to any of six areas of impact in The Wooster Fund: financial aid, mentored undergraduate research, faculty support, experiential learning, campus life and the area of greatest need. The area of greatest need received the most donations out of the six areas of impact.
“The Wooster Fund is budget relieving, which means the operating budget of the College is dependent on the $3.5 million from The Wooster Fund. For the majority of our donors to select ‘area of greatest need’ means they are trusting the College to use their gifts where they are most needed,” Roberts detailed.
#GivingWooDays was able to reach 671 donors, which was 117 percent more than the 570 donor goal, according to the official website. 68 percent of the donors were alumni.
When asked about how students could be more involved with giving campaigns, Roberts commented on the benefit of students giving time to learn about The Wooster Fund.
“Since these funds go directly to the operating budget, it’s important for students to know that the generosity of many enables us to advance the mission of the College. We would love current students to visit the Gault Alumni Center and say thank you to our donors,” stated Roberts.
All students in the Wooster community benefit from The Wooster Fund. By giving thanks and sharing testimony to those who are giving back to the College about the impact of The Wooster Fund, donors will be able to see that their gifts have a tangible and significant impact.