Alumni Strive to Raise Money in Campus Campaign
By Katherine Chow
This year, the Development Office has implemented the Leavey Challenge to unite Santa Clara Alumni and current students of the university.
The challenge was publicly launched in September 2012 and was co-planned by The Leavey Foundation and the university.
The Leavey Foundation, one of the University's most generous donors was founded by Thomas and Dorothy Leavey. Thomas Leavey graduated from SCUin 1922 and later co-founded Farmer's Insurance. Although both Thomas and Dorothy have both since passed away, their passion for Santa Clara's students has continued through their foundations generous support.
Assistant Vice President for Development Mike Wallace stated in an email that the main purpose of this challenge was to "provide incentive for alumni and alumni volunteers to continue to increase the number and percentage of alumni donors at all levels."
The campaign encourages undergraduate Santa Clara alumni to donate to the school and if in total 9,000 donors participate, the Leavey Foundation will donate one million dollars to Santa Clara.
That money will "support scholarships, student research, international study abroad and immersion trips, and a variety of student-led campus initiatives," as stated on the main page for the challenge on the Santa Clara website.
With the deadline June 30, 2013, the school has taken action in letting its former students know about this campaign.
"All undergraduate alumni were sent a letter and a follow up email from Father Engh in early September to announce the challenge," said Wallace. "This message has also been leveraged at Vintage Santa Clara and the Grand Reunion Weekend."
Engh is also an integral part in advertising of the challenge. He has "been a key voice in messaging the challenge. He has also personally spoken to alumni of all ages and has referenced the challenge in all of his talking points to alumni," said Wallace. The university chose the number of 9,000 donors for a particular reason.
"Last year we had a record number of alumni donors, 8,145 undergraduate alumni made a gift of any size," said Wallace.
"Nine thousand donors would be a 10 percent increase over this number and result in 23 percent of our alumni making a gift back to Santa Clara. If Santa Clara can achieve 23 percent alumni giving participation this year, that would be the highest percentage of alumni giving back to (Santa Clara) in the past 10 years."
Wallace also hopes that this campaign will be able to unite current Santa Clara students with previous undergraduate alumni. He hopes that it will be able to "inspire alumni to reconnect with Santa Clara in support of today's amazing students."
Current students will be able to benefit through uses such as "scholarships, academic programmatic support, new facilities and even support of the sport teams and student clubs."
According to last year, 41 percent of the class of 2012 made their own donation back to Santa Clara. With these donations, gifts were distributed to hundreds of areas within the campus, including the Santa Clara Fund, Bronco Bench, individual club sports, scholarships, academic departments, and even student clubs.
Contact Katherine Chow at klchow@scu.edu or call (408) 554-4948.