This year’s donations to the Syracuse University Senior Class Giving Campaign

have exceeded the number of donations received last year due to changes within the campaign.

A committee of 12 students worked to get the word out about the campaign, also known as the Class Act. The campaign’s goal is to obtain 198 donations by graduation. As of Tuesday night, the committee received 176 donations.

Last year, the campaign received 168 donations.

“It’s fantastic to see that the support of the seniors has gone up,” said Kristen Duggleby, assistant director of leadership annual giving. “We have definitely exceeded the amount raised last year, and not only are students giving more, but they also started giving earlier.”

The gifts can fund several causes, all of which aim to better the university. The donations can help fund guest speakers, student awards that pay for travel and conferences, and budgets for student organizations, according to the campaign’s website.

Donations are necessary because people often underestimate the costs of running an institution the size of SU, said Jesse Feitel, a committee member. The donations help fund activities outside of the classroom.

The final deadline for donations is June 30, Duggleby said.

The donation process is completed through the campaign’s website, and is relatively flexible in the way it allows students to specify how much they want to donate. The donation form also includes a write-in option for where the donor wants the money to go.

Donors who gave $20.13 or more were given the opportunity to be guests at a donors appreciation event held in April in the Carrier Dome’s Club 44. However, the committee accepts donations of any amount.

The appreciation event was one of the campaign’s more effective incentives, drawing a lot of donations in the weeks leading up to it, said Julie Deutsch, another committee member. She added that an advantage to the campaign is that when students are dissatisfied with how the university distributes funds, they can use the donation to ensure attention to a specific cause.

The campaign’s most effective method was personally talking to students and answering their questions, said Feitel. He added that this approach was harder to ignore than emails and Facebook posts because it better addressed students’ concerns about where the money will go, as well as how much student activity depends on it.

The committee also promoted the campaign through social media and tabling in the Schine Student Center. Additionally, committee members posted a video about the campaign online.

Feitel said committee members do not push students to donate when they’re not able to do so financially, but emphasized that a lot of student activities are funded by these donations.

“It’s really, really hard to ask people for money,” he said. “Twenty dollars really is for some people a big amount, and we understand that.”

The committee is tracking the campaign’s progress through the number of donations, rather than dollar amounts, Feitel said. The main focus is to get students in the habit of giving back to the university.

Said Feitel: “It’s not about specific numbers, but reinforcing the idea that philanthropy, in large part, contributes to success here at SU.”

Published on May 9, 2013 at 12:01 am

Contact Natsumi: najisaka@syr.edu