The University of Wyoming celebrated its annual Giving Day on Oct. 25, 2023, with this year’s focus being on giving, or donating funds, directly to student organizations. A total of 8,978 donors raised $3,605,192 for this year’s event.
At the University of Wyoming, Giving Day is a twenty-four hour event where departments, organizations, colleges, clubs, sororities and fraternities can raise money for their desired cause. In short, Giving Day is a school-wide fundraising event.
The event’s target group of “givers” is alumni and friends of the university, but anyone can donate starting with one dollar. However, current students are not expected to donate.
Emillee O’Brien, the annual giving manager, and Suweshka Shrestha, the annual giving coordinator, described Giving Day as a ”second homecoming.”
We have 40 student organizations involved this year, last year we had 17 of them,” O’Brien said.
O’Brien and Shrestha also informed that the school does not have a dollar amount goal but rather a donor amount goal. They also said that while the money coming into the organizations is a huge benefit the event also brings together the community.
Jack Tennant, Executive Director of the Alumni Association, explained that the main way to get departments and individuals involved in Giving Day is by turning it into a game.
Many colleges have created some fun competitions within the event. The Honors College and the Haub school, this year, pitted themselves against each other to see who could get the most donors.
The two colleges set the stakes high, determining that the losing team would have their dean go out in a clown costume and serve donuts to their students.
Mandie Reish from the Honors College, clarified that money raised from this year’s Giving Day proceeds will go to Honors College students and study abroad scholarships, and that their primary method for fundraising was done through emails to previous donors to the Honors program and their High School Summer Institute (HSI) program.
”We just want them to share with like, their parents, their grandparents, their networks, so that way we can get the word out to a wider variety of people and hopefully get more donors,” Reish said.
The Honors College beat the Haub school by just four donors, but both teams were outdone on the overall leaderboard as the Western Thunder Marching Band received the most attention at 618 individual donors.
