On April 10, Auburn University hosted the ninth annual Tiger Giving Day, a 24-hour fundraising event showcasing grassroots-led projects from across campus. The event serves as a platform for lesser-known initiatives and provides them with the necessary funding.
With a total of 45 projects featured this year, the spectrum of projects spanned various fields and addressed critical needs both locally and globally.
Through the Tiger Giving website, each project offered descriptions and videos recorded by students and faculty members providing potential donors insights into the purpose of each program and the significance of their cause.
Projects ranged from Auburn engineers aiming to construct water storage tanks in Bolivia to bring fresh clean water where it is not normally accessible to the Campus Kitchen's creation of mobile food pantries for those who do not have a sufficient food supply.
The Baby Steps program focused on raising scholarship funds to support students who are either pregnant or parents in order for them to have the financial means to pursue an education at Auburn University.
“Our goal is to see that each of the 45 projects are fully funded,” said Lisa Lofland, the assistant director of digital marketing at Auburn Advancement. “The idea is that anyone can give any amount. Any donation makes a difference.”
Instead of having an overall fundraising goal, Tiger Giving Day allows each project to set its fundraising target based on its unique needs and aspirations, with dollar amounts ranging from $5,000 to $30,000.
Since its inception in 2015, Tiger Giving Day has had an enduring impact across Auburn's campus. Lofland highlighted the influence of initiatives like the "Experience Auburn Program," which was a featured project in the 2023 Tiger Giving Day and was featured this year as well.
This project provides financial assistance to students, enabling them to visit and explore Auburn University's campus. Seventy-five percent of students who participated in the program went on to enroll at the university.
For a project to be featured on Tiger Giving Day, it must go through a selection process, ensuring its viability, ability to achieve its fundraising goal within 24 hours and appeal to a broad audience. Typically, submissions come through the various colleges at Auburn, and each college has a different vetting process for submitting projects. The university directs projects not selected toward other fundraising opportunities, according to Lofland.
When Tiger Giving Day concluded, $730,000 was raised from more than 4,200 donors, and most of the projects – 41 out of the 45 – fully met their goal, and several exceeded it by more than 150%.
The financial wellness project received the most donations with $46,412 raised. This project’s focus was to use the money raised to create a financial wellness course that would be available to all Auburn students to help them learn skills about making financial decisions.
Do you like this story? The Plainsman doesn't accept money from tuition or student fees, and we don't charge a subscription fee. But you can donate to support The Plainsman.
