On Thursday, November 2nd, the whole Gustavus community came together to raise support for the Gustavus Fund.
Many Gusties participated from far and wide to help allow the College to have flexibility in providing the best liberal arts education to Gustavus students.
This year there were numerous themed challenges which were sponsored by donors.Each challenge required a certain number of participants, and when the number listed was met, the dollar amount listed was added to the Gustavus Fund.
One of the challenges included, “The Lifelong Friendship” challenge which honors all of the lifelong friendships created up on the hill.
A few other challenges were the “Study Abroad,” “Gustie Athletes,” and “Legacy Families.” Each time donors made a gift they were able to select challenges to help reach their goals.
“Our giving portal was open 6 a.m. – 9 p.m., and alumni, parents, and friends were encouraged to go online and make a gift of any amount to help unlock a series of ‘challenges.’ Once a certain amount of donors were achieved that shared a common Gustie experience, the ‘challenge money’ that had been generously donated was released into the total,” Director of Alumni Parent Engagement and Gustie 2001 graduate, Angela Erickson said.
While looking around campus throughout the day and tuning into the live stream, it was obvious that this event had a lot of planning go into it.
There were even hashtags that people could use to share their thoughts and connect on social media throughout the day. The two hashtags used the most were #FireUpTheRouser and #GivetoGustavus.
“The planning for Give to Gustavus Day started initially last November, right after the 2016 event, but really ramped up starting in June. Our core team assigned to various components to the day included members of the Advancement, Marketing and Communications, GTS, and Event Services staff,” Erickson said.
In addition to the online giving, the college featured an all-day live stream.
“The live stream helped provide updates on all things Gustavus to our community members who aren’t here on the hill (and even some who are!). We featured interviews every half hour from academic departments, athletics, fine arts, admission, and others. We also held some live events in the Twin Cities for our alumni, parents, and friends to come watch the live stream together and get excited about giving back to Gustavus!” Erickson said.
One of the segments that took place on the live-stream included Gustavus students that received the Heritage Scholarships.
“During the segment, we talked about our college search process, whether or not we put financial aid as a priority and what we enjoy about Gustavus and some aspects of college life that we enjoy and any hardship we’ve endured,” First-year Elsa Beise said.
The day was full of fun events and a lot of giving. In total, the college raised over $417,000 throughout the day-long events.
“Most importantly the college received gifts from over 1,000 donors!” Erickson said.
One of the challenges for the day was that if the college received a gift from each state in the country, then the Bergman family would donate a very generous $50,000.
The challenge was completed much earlier in the day than President Bergman anticipated, so many were excited for that.
For those who helped plan the event, it was so rewarding and fun to see all of the positive reactions and many donations that took place.
“There was so much energy leading up to the event, from our core team to our over 150 volunteers deployed around the world, to the faculty, staff, and students on campus. It was so fun to see all the pieces come together! For me personally, it was fun being one of the “on-air personalities” kind of like on a TV morning show,” Erickson said.
The students who participated in events throughout the day even had a great time.
“I loved being on the live stream event and am so happy that the school was able to raise the amount that it did,” Beise said.
Without everyone’s support, the day wouldn’t have been possible and wouldn’t have had the incredible outcome that it did.
“We’re so grateful for the outpouring of support from our alumni, parents, and friends, including our faculty and staff here on campus. Even more importantly, it was so cool to see gifts come in from current students as they logged on to help complete some of the challenges as well! Any gift of any amount counted in that big total, so thinking about how many people helped make the day a huge success, as well as what it means for us to be able to turn right back around and use those funds to support students as they receive a Gustavus education is absolutely awesome,” the Office of Alumni and Parent Engagement said.