Starting April 28 to May 2, ‘I Love TU’ fundraised approximately $700,000.
The Taylor Fund is aimed at benefiting the student experience at Taylor. The money from the fund lessens the cost of tuition by $2,000 per student, as well as supporting other events at Taylor.
‘I Love TU’ Week was complemented by an intensive media campaign which spanned video content, social media and direct mail to possible donors to raise awareness of the fund and its purpose. About 450 donors gave that week, falling short of their goal of 500 supporters.
The Taylor Fund differs from other donations to the university in that the fund’s donors are donors giving $10, $50 or $100. Noah Huseman, coordinator of digital engagement and annual giving, said many of the donors are personally connected to Taylor.
“The supporters of the Taylor Fund all come from different walks of life… but generally they have some prior relationship with the university.” Huseman said. “They may be — like myself — a graduate of Taylor, they may be a current parent, a former parent, or a grandparent of a student.”
The $700,000 figure takes into account the donation matching program Taylor ran. For every dollar donated, a conglomerate of givers added two more dollars, incentivizing small gifts and increasing the impact of their donations.
In addition to external fundraising, Huseman and Madison Slusher, content and special programs developer, also ran an ‘I Love TU’ Week booth in the LaRita Boren Campus Center. The goal of the booth was to raise student awareness of the fund, educating students of the benefits it brings to their college experience.
“Noah Huseman had the idea of doing some sort of House Cup, like in Harry Potter, and I wanted to do games inspired by game shows, so we combined these ideas and came up with a Battle of the Halls,” Slusher said. “I took ideas from popular game shows and added a Taylor twist to all of them.”
Among the games were Golf Cart Trivia, Friendly Feud and What’s That Song- Worship Edition.
Perhaps the biggest hit of them all was the cricket eating competition — a spoof of Deal or No Deal and Fear Factor. The crickets — smoky barbecue flavor, for those wondering — were purchased off of Amazon from a gourmet cricket roaster and served to the student body for possible points for one’s hall.
Students tended to approach the game with what Huseman describes as “fear and trembling”, though after taking the leap of faith, they tended to like the snack. One brave student even began to calculate the macronutrients of the crickets, aiming to evaluate it as a new post-workout snack.
Huseman said some dorms failed to live up to their boasts, others, such as Breuninger and Bergwall enthusiastically took up the challenge. Slusher even had to turn some away.
“People would just walk up to me and be like, hey, can I just eat one for 1000 points? And we’re like, ‘No, that’s not how the game works,’” she says.
In total, about 600 students took part in the games throughout the week.
Breuninger Hall triumphed in the Battle of the Halls, winning $1,000 dollars to be spent on the dorm in some way.
The hall has not yet decided what to spend the money on due to the recency of the gift, Liv Bloom, hall director of Breuninger and Gerig, said. They hope to decide by the end of the week.
The ‘I Love TU’ Week is a great reminder of the systems in place and the number of donors dedicated to helping students live life to the full.
“We have thousands of these people,” Huseman says, “coming together every single year to raise money for students like you.”
