Generous alumni helped make Mary Wash Giving Day a ringing success, donating $449,631 in a 24-hour online campaign March 20. Donors – more than 700 of whom were first-time givers to Mary Washington – blasted past the day’s goal of 1,908 gifts in honor of the university’s 1908 founding. By day’s end, they’d made 2,987 gifts.
The event allowed alumni, parents, and friends to contribute to all things Mary Wash. Donors dug deep to support UMW athletics; theatre; the colleges of Arts and Sciences, Education, and Business; UMW Galleries; the Gari Melchers Home and Studio; the James Monroe Museum; Campus Recreation; the Fund for Mary Washington; and more.
The University Center, serving as the on-campus Giving Day headquarters, bustled with activity. Social media lit up all day long, as UMW supporters created, shared, and liked posts about the event. President Troy Paino rallied support in Paino’s Day Out, a video on the theme “What can you do in a day?” The film drew 449 shares and more than 19,000 likes on social media. It broke the record for numbers of views of a UMW video in the university’s social media history. (Search for it on YouTube!)
“What a day!” Director of Annual Giving Beth Waters Hunsinger ’01 wrote on the event website. “Thank you for … making a huge difference for UMW students and programs.”
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