Following Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday, the Boston University community participated in a national campaign called Giving Tuesday for the first time, encouraging students, alumni and other supporters to donate to the colleges, programs and services at BU.
Giving Tuesday was created in 2012 in response to the unofficial shopping holidays following Thanksgiving. Although it began as a national campaign, BU administrators wanted to bring Giving Tuesday to BU to give donors an opportunity to help the university, said Dan Allenby, BU associate vice president of annual giving.
In BU’s first year participating in the program, the university raised approximately $20,000 from 150 donors, Allenby said.
“We saw it as an opportunity to remind our donors about all the great causes that exist at Boston University, and we were really just encouraging our donors to support any cause within the university or area of the university that was important to them, the idea that people would give back rather than get,” he said.
Although the money raised is a small amount in comparison to the $1 million raised in April on the official BU Giving Day, Allenby said, the money will have a significant influence on the BU community.
“The approximately $20,000 that was raised on Giving Tuesday is going to have a huge impact on the faculty and students here at the university,” he said.
When a donation is made, the benefactor has the option to choose what school, department or organization their money goes to, said BU spokesman Colin Riley.
“You can see that you can designate a particular group, you can put it to an individual school, to scholarship funds, to athletic teams, to the Community Service Center, to individual scholarships,” Riley said. “It’s the whole range of accounts at the university, and most important, you can donate to the university, and the university will give it to what they see as their greatest need.”
D.A. Whatley, one of the co-chairs for the Class Gift Committee, donated to the BU Black Business Student Association on Giving Tuesday.
“Giving Tuesday is pretty big in my opinion, because of course we have Black Friday, Cyber Monday … but I like the fact that Giving Tuesday prides philanthropy and goodwill and putting money back into something you really care about, in your own community,” he said.
Whatley said he is not surprised at all that BU was able to raise a good sum of money on Tuesday.
“Here at Boston University, we obviously have a really strong community of alumni and a strong community in general of people who love to see this institution become what it is today,” he said. “We don’t become the fourth largest research institution overnight.
Giving Tuesday is one of multiple fundraising efforts through the Campaign for BU, which includes Giving Day in April and the Class Gift Committee.
“Specifically, the reason why the Class Gift Committee has a role in this is because we wanted to go ahead and start fostering this mindset within the class of 2015 about the joys of philanthropy and why they should want to give back and build the BU they want to see as alumni when they come back on campus five, ten, 20, 30 years from now,” Whatley said.
Several students said they feel positively about the impacts of the charity movement.
Samantha Kelley a freshman in the College of Communication, said the concept of Giving Tuesday is a great contrast to the consumerism behind Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
“Giving Tuesday is a good idea,” she said. “Especially with the Black Friday Thanksgiving mentality, you want to be thankful for what you have, but you should also give back to people who don’t have as much as you do.”
Caitlin Donohue, a senior in COM, said she would rather utilize Giving Tuesday to benefit other organizations.
“I definitely think it’s a great way to benefit the school,” she said. “Giving Tuesday reminds us that there are a lot of people less fortunate than us, so I think it would be even better if BU did something or set something up where you were donating to a charitable cause.”
Basak Oztahtaci, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, said the campaign offers a unique opportunity to give back to her school.
“It’s important to give back to your school,” she said. “Once I start making my own money, I’ll definitely give back to my schools from the past, including BU if it really needs it. You learn so much and BU really prepares you for life, so I owe them.”
Gabi Arriaga contributed to the reporting of this article.
