Anais Tournier
On April 12, UCSB hosted its second annual Give Day fundraiser. This event raised nearly $5.7 million in donations through 1,511 donors. Give Day is a one-day social media fundraiser that allows donors to makes “gifts” to an array of 22 different university programs.
The theme of this year’s Give Day was developed by Beverly Colgate, Associate Vice Chancellor and Development Executive Director of Give Day who wanted to convey a “story of collaboration.” She said the goal of the fundraiser is not only to raise money, but to increase the amount of people who care about UCSB.
“It’s truly about getting people back engaged in the community,” said Colgate.
This theme of togetherness appealed to many new donors, which allowed Give Day 2018 to make a large impact on so many different departments.
Out of the participating programs, three departments earned significant funding, landing them on the Give Day 2018 leaderboard. The Sciences earned over $800,000 from 138 donors while the College of Engineering, although having less donors, received over $900,000 of funding. The Humanities & Fine Arts not only had the most amount of donors, but also the most funding, earning $1.3 million from 170 different donors.
The Department of Humanities & Fine Arts also received the largest donation of the day by John Arnhold, a former Gaucho. Arnhold, who received his B.A. in English from UCSB in 1975, gifted $735,000 to fund 10 new Humanities & Fine Arts classes, which will be developed and taught in quarters to come.
Colgate is not surprised by such a generous outcome since, “UCSB has the most alumni that give back out of all the UCs.”
Louis Hill, a student worker at the Annual Fund, witnessed the generosity of donors firsthand. The Annual Fund is a non-profit organization on campus that focuses on outreach to alumni and parents to fundraise for Student Affairs. Hill, who worked on Give Day, said that everyone on shift was doing their best in hopes to raise more than four million dollars.
“It was time for us to give 100 percent,” said Hill.
Within his shift, Hill personally was able to raise 600 dollars that will be going towards programs such as CLAS and DSP.
“During this time, people want to give more,” said Hill. “And it is clear by the results that people do [give more].”
In addition to supporting current Gauchos through these varying department donation, 308 gifts were also made to the Campus Excellence Fund. The nearly $60,000 raised will be used to award scholarships to future Gauchos who are in need of monetary support to attend college. There are individual funds for peoples of all places and background, from the Dream Scholar fund for undocumented students to the National Capital Area Scholarship Fund for out-of-state students.
The concept of Give Day first started in 2016. Within the 24 hour time span, 3.8 million dollars were raised from over 1,200 donors. Out of these donors, 83 percent were UCSB alumni giving back to their alma mater and supporting new Gauchos on their path to success.
From Give Day 2016 to Give Day 2018, Colgate is proud of how engaged all the students and faculty have been to help promote this event, stating that “my favorite thing about Give Day is the university pride; it is so incredible to see.”
This pride could be seen all over campus on Thursday. Multiple professors from the Communication Department were pied on a live Facebook feed to publicize the fundraiser. Social media was covered by the hashtag #UCSBGiveDay. Students who posted with the hashtag were rewarded with free phone cases, custom shirts, and gelato in varying locations on campus.