Cornell Giving Day 2024
Thursday, March 14, was Cornell Giving Day, a 24-hour fundraising frenzy when Cornell’s friends and alumni were called upon to donate to very specific causes. Giving Day is the closest thing to a free market in philanthropy where many causes were very visible in their fundraising success.
Overall, Cornell raised $12,172,046 from 18,693 donors. This represented a drop from $13,043,165 in 2023.
Giving Day is facilitated by a website that contains a separate page for each cause replete with colorful photos, enticing text and videos – all designed to convince a donor to choose a gift amount and donate. Each cause can recruit matching donors or donors that release a bonus gift once a certain benchmark is met.
The website also featured an arcade-style game where big red bears could deliver pies across campus. Bonus gifts were awarded to the causes whose donors delivered the most virtual pies.
Alumni were brought to the website by repeated emails, Facebook campaigns, social media posts, postcards, and solicitation phone calls. Although most gifts were made during the 24-hour period, Cornell allowed large donors to make gifts in advance particularly to fund the matching gifts or bonus awards.
Donors Named
Each page listed most donations by name. Some donations were anonymous, and others were made under inventive names like “Bean, the awesome tuxedo cat! ^–^”. The listing of donors would encourage their friends to donate as well.
Day Hall Administrators and Trustees were encouraged to donate generously to various visible causes. Fred Van Sickle, VP for Alumni Affairs and Development, gave $5,000 to the Access Fund for First-Generation and Low-Income Student Support. Kathryn Boor, Dean of the Graduate School, donated $1,000 to the Graduate School Annual Fund. (Boor also donated $500 to Anabel’s Grocery.) Law School Dean Jens Ohlin gave $3,000 and former Law Dean Eduardo Peñalver donated $500 to the Law School. VP Joel Malina and VP Fred Van Sickle each gave $500 to the Johnson Art Museum.
VP for Student and Campus Life Ryan Lombardi gave $500 to the Athletics and Physical Education Annual Fund. Former VP for Student and Campus Life, Susan Murphy ‘73, was very generous with the Class of 1973 Scholarship Fund, and Life Trustee Ezra Cornell ‘70 gave a $5,000 matching challenge gift to Sigma Phi. Trustee Emeritus David Einhorn ‘91 gave $20,000 to the Einhorn Center for Community Engagement when that fund attracted 60 donors. He also gave $10,000 to Cornell Tech when 60 donors supported Cornell Tech. Trustee Chair Kraig Kayser MBA ‘84 gave $100,000 to undergraduate scholarships when 100 donors gave to that cause. He also gave $10,000 to the Johnson School Annual Fund when 125 students donated to a Johnson School cause. Kayser also gave $10,000 when the football team reached $10,000, as well as a number of other $10,000 matches. Trustee Martin Scheinman ‘75 matched $50,000 of gifts to ILR’s Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution.
Colleen Barry, Dean of the Brooks School of Public Policy, gave a $10,000 matching gift for donations to that school. University Librarian Elaine Westbrooks matched $5,000 of donations from faculty or staff to the Library.
Colleges
Most of Cornell’s fundraising efforts are based in its colleges. The top college Giving Day totals were:
| College | Total Raised | Donors |
|---|---|---|
| Arts & Sciences | $997,324.99 | 1,440 |
| Human Ecology | $598,849.50 | 556 |
| Engineering | $524,849.21 | 3,186 |
| ILR School | $455,243.77 | 508 |
| Architecture, Art & Planning | $396,005.58 | 155 |
These totals include results from many individual causes sponsored by each college.
Athletics
The largest beneficiary of Giving Day was athletics, where 7,595 donors gave $5,033,588. The top sports by total donations were: Football with $195,717 from 408 donors; Squash with $194,989 from 372 donors, and Crew with $170,559 from 654 donors. The top sports by total donors were Track and Field with $101,335 from 743 donors; Crew; Sprint Football with $122,015 from 510 donors; and Men’s Soccer with $146,700 from 491 donors.
This was the first Giving Day fully under Nicki Moore as Director of Athletics. Last year, Andy Noel led most of the Giving Day planning. Athletics last year produced a total of $5,471,787.05, and this year represents an 8% drop from 2023.
“Woke” Causes Did Not Draw Donor Support
Regarding “Woke” causes, most colleges allowed donors to designate their DEI programs for targeted gifts. However, only a few programs made their results open to public view. For example, the Bowers CIS – Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Fund gained $690 from 12 gifts. The Johnson DEI got $1,530 from 19 donors. Dyson’s DEI Office got $795 from 8 gifts. Two donors gave $90 to Multicultural Student Leadership & Empowerment (MSL&E). Diversity Programs in Engineering, which recently took over 40% of the Engineering Library reading room, received $1,110 from 15 donors.
The Office of Academic Diversity Initiatives, which handles DEI for the Provost received $2,682 from 22 gifts.
Regarding specific “Woke” academic departments, the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program received $2,200 from 13 donors. Fifty-one donors gave $10,483 to the Africana Studies and Research Center. ILR WIDE drew $285 from 5 donors. Cornell did not release the giving data for its new Center for Racial Justice and Equitable Futures.
Other “Woke” areas include the Human Sexuality Collection which received $865 from 12 gifts. Black Entrepreneurs in Training got $475 from 6 gifts. Five donors gave $320 to the Cornell Center for Health Equity. Ujamaa received $1,555 from 23 donors. The Latino Living Center got $1,045 from 15 donors. Seventeen donors gave $1,565 to Black Student Empowerment.
Technology Causes
The Bowers College of Computing and Information Sciences annual fund got $172,774 from 228 donors. The Cornell Tech annual fund received $62,875 from 401 donors. The “Cornell Digital Tech & Innovation” in the Engineering College got $2,525 from 24 donors. The “Brooks School Tech Policy Institute” did not attract any donors or gifts. The professional machine shop in the basement of Clark Hall even had its own page and drew $235 from 8 donors. To confuse the non-tech minded, Giving Day continued to offer obscure donation recipients like “Cornell Law School – Offline Upload Misc”.
Religious-Themed Causes
The current Gaza controversy does not appear to have affected Giving Day for religious-themed donations. Perhaps in response to alleged anti-semitism on campus, Hillel drew $171,104 from 548 donors for its campaign to construct a new headquarters. The Roitman Chabad Center received $36,003 from 95 donors. Thirty-three donors gave $5,243 to the Center for Jewish Living Endowment.
As for Islamic causes, the Diwan Foundation drew $2,220 from 12 donors.
Ninety-four donors gave $10,434 to the Catholic Community. Chesterton House got $19,874 from 30 donors. Thirteen donors gave $1,553 to the umbrella organization, Cornell United Religious Works and the Office of Spirituality and Meaning Making.
Top Student and Campus Life Causes (not athletic)
Student and Campus Life drew $844,890 from 4,366 donors. Although many causes had their own webpage, donors had the ability to designate any registered student organization to receive funding.
| Student and Campus Life Cause | Total | Donors |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Cornell Hillel | $171,104 | 548 |
| 2. Delta Kappa Epsilon | $74,101 | 122 |
| 3. Roitman Chabad Center | $36,003 | 95 |
| 4. Access Fund for First Gen. Low Income Students | $35,014 | 214 |
| 5. Einhorn Center for Community Engagement | $32,290 | 66 |
| 6. Hillcrest SAE Development Fund | $28,399 | 44 |
| 7. Club Water Polo Cornell | $26,716 | 129 |
| 8, Chesterton House | $19,874 | 30 |
| 9. Sigma Phi Building Fund | $15,875 | 21 |
| 10. Catholic Community at Cornell | $13,429 | 94 |
Although Cornell-owned fraternity and sorority houses had successful fundraisers, the Office of Sorority and Fraternity Life did not. That office experienced the departure of three popular staff members in the past year and drew only $955 from 8 donors, which included Assistant VP Jenny Loeffelman and former VP Susan Murphy ‘73.
This category includes club sports, which are generally dependent upon student activity fees and Giving Day. For example, the Buds Ultimate Frisbee Team received $1,123 from 16 donors.
Class Breakdown
Each donor was required to specify a graduating class when making a donation. The donation totals by class were evenly distributed with a bit of a drop off for the oldest classes. The top fundraisers with classes from the 1980s and 1990s, which represent the peak earning years of Cornell alumni. A notable exception was the Class of 1972, which was in first place with 99 donors giving a total of $472,919.
A number of challenge gifts set targets for donors from the ten most recent classes. The challenge gift for young alumni in the ILR School, among others, were not reached.
Although the 18,692 Giving Day donors may not be representative of Cornell’s 245,000 living alumni, it does represent Cornell’s 90,500 total donor base. Indeed, the number of Giving Day donors is up from 14,411 in 2021.
As with 2022 and 2023, the data makes clear that alumni are enthusiastic supporters of more traditional programs, and that if left to alumni donations, woke programs would go broke.
