The University participated in Giving Tuesday, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving dedicated to creating an international day of charitable giving at the beginning holiday season, last Tuesday, Nov. 27.
The Office of Alumni Engagement and Annual Affairs set up a table in the Rebecca Stafford Student Center to encourage the students, faculty, and members on campus to make donations of any size to support the University and its fundraising initiatives.
Efforts were made to raise money by asking donors to support University Athletics on Giving Tuesday by giving a gift to some of the 20 sports teams during the holiday season, as well as to raise money for the University’s new scholarship campaign, Together We Can.
The goal of this campaign is to raise $15 million in gifts and pledges by June 30, 2019. Even before its efforts on Giving Tuesday, the University has already made much progress toward reaching its goal for the campaign. Since October, development stands at $10.3 million, about 68 percent of the way to reaching the University’s goal.
Jonathan Meer, Vice President for University Advancement, explained that the Division of University Advancement is providing staffing support and overall daily logistical management of the Campaign. “One of our top priorities has been to recruit a volunteer committee (The Campaign Cabinet) that is fully representative of the breadth of the University community. That obviously includes students, faculty, staff, Trustees, alumni, parents, and local businesses,” he said.
Efforts by the campaign are to reach and exceed its $15 million goal in order to accelerate the University’s trajectory of academic excellence, in order to enable highly qualified students from economically, geographically, and culturally diverse backgrounds to apply and attend.
“These may seem like daunting numbers, but we have found that even $5,000 in scholarship aid can be the deciding factor in a student’s choice of Monmouth over a peer institution,” University President Grey Dimenna, Esq., writes in an email about the scholarship campaign. “By way of reference, annual scholarships at Monmouth can be established with a commitment of $1,000 per year over a five-year period.”
Meer explained that many of the University’s donors are stepping up with support for the campaign to help students address as much of their unmet financial need as is possible. In addition, volunteers from the Campaign Cabinet are accompanying members of the Advancement Division on solicitation visits to those who are close to the University, and asking for commitments to support scholarships for students. Some donors are establishing new scholarships while others are adding to their existing scholarships, according to Meer.
“Giving is essential to the survival of our institution. If students cannot come here, then we have no University,” said Nicholas Verzicco, a senior finance student and a member of the Campaign Cabinet. “Many prospective students base their decisions on financial aid and an amount of $1,500 could cause a student to go somewhere else. The ability to give the additional financial aid could really bring the amazing students who really want to go here but cannot afford it to Monmouth.”
PHOTO COURTESY of Monmouth University
