Jenna Civitello had already mailed the save-the-date cards and recruited 600 volunteers to help raise money for Emory University’s April 2 giving day. As director of alumni and constituent giving, she had been working flat-out since January to plan events and craft direct mail and online appeals. Donations from the 24-hour campaign, which topped $1 million last year, would support the university’s schools and programs.
But five days after sending the mailing, her best-laid plans went awry.
The coronavirus was spreading quickly across the country, and densely populated areas, like college campuses, could amplify the outbreak. On the evening of March 11, Emory notified staff that the campus would close for the remainder of the school year.
“Moving forward with the typical Emory Day of Giving just wasn’t right,” said Civitello.
Over the last decade, giving days have become a popular means for charities to recruit new donors. For colleges and universities hoping to engage students and young alumni in lifetime giving, these fundraising drives can be especially valuable. But as institutions respond to the coronavirus by shuttering campuses and moving students to online learning, many are changing the focus of their upcoming giving days to spotlight urgent student needs.
At Emory, Civitello and her colleagues quickly scrapped the giving day when they learned the university was sending students home. By the next morning, they had launched a crowdfunding campaign for the student hardship fund. Two Emory students started the fund in 2011 to make grants for graduate and undergraduate students in need. Students can apply for grants to cover travel expenses or funds to cover lost wages.
Communication about the crowdfunding campaign was more organic than what fundraisers would do for a giving day. The advancement office sent giving-day volunteers an email explaining that the fundraising campaign had been canceled and students would finish the academic year at home. Civitello said emails from the advancement office suggested the fund as a way to help students, but didn’t explicitly ask for a donation.
“We just wanted to be in touch, make sure staff, faculty, students, and then alumni were starting to get the most important information first and to know what Emory was doing,” Civitello said.
Fundraisers spread the word about crowdfunding for the student hardship fund on campus email lists and the alumni e-newsletter. A banner on the giving-day website announces its cancellation and includes a link for donations to the student, faculty, and staff hardship funds and a fund supporting research on the virus.
“We really are trying to be sensitive,” she said. “There’s real philanthropic needs right now, but there’s also people that are trying to figure out their own family’s needs.”
In less than one week, donors gave more than $35,000 for emergency grants to college and graduate students.
Civitello said it’s unlikely that the university will hold a giving day during the remainder of this fiscal year. These flash fundraising days are typically high-energy and involve on-campus events, matching gift challenges, and friendly competition between school programs.
“We will be losing those donors that are driven by the competition piece,” Civitello said of the canceled campaign. But she adds that the crowdfunding effort could inspire some donors. “This is also more altruistic, and it meets needs, which maybe compels a different set of donors to give.”
Canceling the giving day was the right decision, Civitello said, but it will have real consequences on the school’s fundraising.
“Student giving is definitely part of our typical day of giving, and we are not asking students to give right now,” she said. “I don’t think it’s being pessimistic to say donor count will be down this year. I think it’s a reality.”
And while she’s hopeful that big donors will pitch in to make up for lost funds, she expects this year’s fundraising total to drop compared with last year.
Unknown Impact
Emory is just one of many universities facing this conundrum. Kestrel Linder, chief executive of the fundraising technology company GiveCampus, said more than 300 educational institutions had planned to use that technology for giving days in February, March, and April. Most of these schools, colleges, and universities are now canceling or postponing their giving days or using them to raise money for student hardship funds instead of the annual fund.
But giving days aren’t the only strategy that college fundraisers are reconsidering right now. Educational institutions are also beginning to consider the longer-term impact this crisis will have on their finances. The view of that impact is hazy, and it’s too soon to know just what colleges and universities will need to ask of their donors in the future. “Fundraising in a time of uncertainty is really, really tricky, and you can’t push it too hard,” said Christina Paxson, president of Brown University. She expects to see demand for financial aid balloon next year.
The university has launched a crowdfunding campaign for its Student Emergency Support Fund, which is covering urgent student needs, including airfare to return home and schoolbooks. Donors have so far given nearly $500,000 to the fund.
“The longer-term concern is what happens to the macroeconomy after the pandemic is over,” Paxson said. “So, are we in for a short, sharp recession, or are we in for a lengthy recession and recovery?”
For now, many college and university fundraisers are taking the time to reconnect with their donors, alumni, and parents. School leaders at Boston College decided to postpone the university’s scheduled giving day and, instead, launched a community outreach campaign on March 18, when the fundraising blitz would have occurred.
“We absolutely did not want this or anything we did to look also opportunistic,” said Jim Husson, senior vice president for advancement. Instead of a fundraising campaign, they called the virtual event a “Day of Caring,” based on the college’s Jesuit value of nurturing the whole person, Husson said.
Students, staff, alumni, and parents were encouraged to share stories on social media about how someone at the college exemplified that value. “Take a break from world news and get ready to be inspired,” reads the Day of Caring webpage.
At the request of giving-day volunteers, it also includes a link to a donation form for the college’s student hardship fund, but Husson said collecting gifts for the fund “wasn’t really even a goal at all.”
Husson is hopeful that, later in the year, the school can launch a giving day. Last year’s raised more than $730,000 through individual donations and matching gifts. And while that fundraising drive was put on ice, Husson said last week’s Day of Caring was valuable for the community.
“I think it established our commitment to caring for people as human beings first and foremost,” he said. “Hopefully that’s something we’ll be able to build on going forward.”
‘Life Is Not Normal’
Fundraisers agree that colleges and universities have little choice but to change their plans and messaging. “You cannot continue on like life is normal, because life is not normal,” said fundraising consultant Lynne Wester.
She cited Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, saying that the donors to whom college giving days typically appeal are now much more focused on basic necessities like ensuring the health and well-being of themselves and their families.
Donating to their college annual fund, she said, “is not the most important thing in their life right now.”
In light of that reality, fundraisers at University of California, Davis, are revising plans for the university’s April giving day. Among other changes, fundraisers will send fewer email appeals in the month before their upcoming giving day on April 17 — cutting the number of emails about the fundraising day from 12 to three.
“At least one or two of those will focus around emergency needs specifically, and we’re also adding a page to our give day [website] that is specific to the unexpected hardships and emergency needs,” said Michelle Poesy, senior director of annual and special gifts at the university. She added that the fast-spreading virus could still cause the school to cancel or postpone the campaign in the next few weeks.
Last year, UC Davis raised $2.1 million on its giving day, but Poesy isn’t confident that fundraising will reach that level this year — mostly because the university will be sending fewer appeals.
As colleges and universities get a clearer picture of the full financial impact of the coronavirus — from canceled giving days to dwindling endowments — fundraisers may be eager to return to a regular schedule of fundraising appeals.
But Wester counseled patience: “You can’t start sending out annual fund appeals and pretending like life is normal until we have toilet paper back on the shelves.”
