Campaign collects 26-percent more than in 2016, finishes with 2,012 Gifts
Last month was a record-setting one for Colgate Athletics fundraising as the annual March Mania Challenge blew past its goal and recorded the highest participation in the event’s four years.
The monthlong challenge received 2,012 gifts, or a 26-percent increase over last year’s March Mania total of 1,592. The total number increase was 420 individual donors.
Exceeding this year’s goal of 1,313 gifts resulted in a $50,000 challenge gift to the Colgate Athletic Council. The final gift total wound up topping the goal by more than 53 percent.
“We would like to thank all of Raider Nation for their overwhelming support and generosity in reaching the goals of the challenge,” said Colgate Vice President and Director of Athletics Victoria M. Chun ’91, MA’94. “We are one team, but the spirit of friendly competition helped push us to new heights in a record-breaking month.
“We also would like to especially thank our challengers for their support and leadership.”
Individual teams competed in groups to see which ones could bring in the most gifts from alumni, parents and student-athletes. The team winners in their respective size groupings were women’s soccer with 150 gifts, men’s lacrosse with 198 gifts and football with 266 gifts.
All three totals represented increases versus the winners of those groups in last year’s challenge.