Day of Giving Is Record-Breaking Success

Dedicated NC State supporters showed the incredible strength of the Pack during the university’s third Day of Giving on March 24 — setting a national record for dollars raised during college and university giving days, according to the consulting firm State of Wow.

At the close of the day, real-time numbers reflected 14,272 gifts totaling $58,103,657. Donors from all 100 counties in North Carolina, all 50 states and 23 countries joined together to invest in NC State students, faculty, staff, research and programs.

This year’s total exceeds 2020’s Day of Giving by nearly $35 million raised and more than 6,000 gifts. The previous highest dollar total was Purdue University, with $42.2 million in 2020.

“It is truly humbling to see the generosity of our alumni, friends, parents, faculty and staff in action today,” said Chancellor Randy Woodson. “Your support is going to be transformative for NC State.”

The College of Veterinary Medicine finished the day at the top of the leaderboard in dollars raised with $8.7 million, while the Division of Academic and Student Affairs had the greatest participation with 2,268 gifts, pending final processing. 

The Division of Academic and Student Affairs also won the new Power Your Pack leaderboard, with the greatest growth in gifts from 2019’s or 2020’s Day of Giving.

“We cannot thank the Wolfpack community enough. Our donors have been nothing short of extraordinary over this past year, and 2021’s record-setting Day of Giving was no exception,” said Brian C. Sischo, vice chancellor for university advancement. “Every single gift is going to go to work bettering our university, our state and, ultimately, our world.”

Throughout the day, volunteer leadership boards across campus made gifts and promoted opportunities for participating.  

Wolfpack Women in Philanthropy (WWIP), for example, honored NC State’s first full-time female student with a matching gift challenge. The group’s collective efforts enhanced areas around campus including scholarships, individual colleges, the Women’s Center and athletics. 

Co-chair Gayle Lanier ’82 shared that the day offered WWIP an opportunity to encourage fellow women alumni, parents and friends to support the funds at NC State that mean the most to them and to share broadly the impact every gift makes — not only now, after the year of challenges students have faced, but always.

Support for this year’s event continued to focus on building educational access. Late in the afternoon, Woodson announced that anonymous donors committed to expanding scholarships for transfer students from North Carolina community colleges.

“We’re dedicated to building new pathways to an NC State degree, and philanthropy helps support those efforts,” said Woodson. “We are so excited — and extremely grateful — that we will be able to increase access and give more students each year the extraordinary opportunity to attend NC State.”

Additionally, a number of new Extraordinary Opportunity Scholarship Initiative (EOSI) endowments were created on the day, while website totals showed nearly $130,000, comprising gifts of all sizes, committed to immediate-use EOSI scholarships.

This ensures the ongoing growth of EOSI after the initial 31 awards were made for the spring 2021 semester — as a direct result of gifts during last year’s Day of Giving.

“This is why we do what we do,” Sischo said.

Day of Giving support also continues to provide critical resources for ongoing efforts to build a more equitable institution. An anonymous Raleigh couple created a giving challenge for College of Education scholarships targeted toward educational equity, and hundreds of other gifts bolstered funds for scholarships and programs dedicated to diversity, equity and inclusion. 

Day of Giving’s social media component inspired students to get involved in the event by participating in the hashtag challenge match. Throughout the day, participants tweeted what they loved about NC State, tagged the college or program they wanted to support and used #GivingPack to earn $10 for the area tagged — to the tune of 600 tweets and $6,000 in bonus funds allocated to areas across the university. 

The Department of Music rallied behind the hashtag challenge match last year, inspiring a new challenge for 2021: the hashtag match champion, to be awarded to the college or program with most unique tweets using #GivingPack throughout the challenge. Once again, music students came out in full force to ensure their department won.

“What Day of Giving continues to show us is that philanthropy is collaborative,” Woodson said. “We’re grateful to everyone who participated today through making gifts and through sharing photos and memories on social media. Your generosity and commitment keep our Pack connected now and always — all while making a difference for NC State.”

Full results are available at dayofgiving.ncsu.edu.

This post was originally published in Giving News.