Giving Week
On the eve of G-Day 2019, Head Football Coach Kirby Smart called on the Bulldog Nation to show our UGA pride and support our great university. And so the inaugural UGA Giving Week began. Counting all donations from April 19-27, Giving Week was a resounding success as over 3,500 donors gave nearly $1.5 million to UGA. Alumni from every school and college pitched in, resulting in over 2,600 alumni donors, including 230 who had never given to UGA before! The flash campaign was a paragon of collaboration with Annual Giving, DAR Communications, Advancement Services, Alumni Relations, Gift Accounting, and all our campus colleagues and partners. Thanks to all who donated and helped spread the word!
Fun Facts about our first Giving Week:
- Giving Week donors represented 45 U.S. States and 6 countries. Talk about a global Bulldog community!
- As expected, Giving Week inspired a grassroots-like response from UGA’s alumni base. 1,700 donations were $50 or less, with 600 of those gifts being $10 or less.
- Young alumni responded well to GivingWeek’s digital-based campaign. Nearly 1,000 alumni donors were under the age of 40!
- Our GeorgiaFunder platform performed admirably in its most daunting test to date, processing dozens–sometimes hundreds–of gifts within short spans of time.
- Donor Relations and Stewardship’s ThankView platform was utilized to send thousands of Giving Week donors a grateful message from a UGA student.
- DARCOMM’s digital media game was in overdrive! The Georgia Giving Week digital advertising campaign generated 1,373,828 impressions, 253 donations, 173,310 listens/views and 2,354 social post engagements. The digital plan executed for Giving Week included multi-faceted targeting through running paid social, Google display, YouTube and podcast reads to simultaneously deliver a comprehensive message to our alumni.
- Annual Giving and Advancement Services unveiled a new tool during Giving Week: mobile wallet payments! Donors had the option of giving via their Visa Checkout or Apple Pay accounts. 250 of these transactions totaled over $13,000!
