The William & Mary community, here and afar, will come together on Tuesday, April 10 to celebrate One Tribe One Day — the university’s fifth annual giving day. For 24 hours, students, alumni, parents, faculty, staff and friends can make a gift of any size to any area of William & Mary.
Last year, One Tribe One Day brought more than 12,000 donors together to give over $2.4 million to the university. Tribe members from all over the globe contributed to the effort. The 2018 event promises to be even more successful, as the university hopes to attract 14,000 donors throughout Tuesday. As in years past, W&M Libraries will be participating in the effort.
Why give to W&M Libraries? Our campus libraries provide the services, resources and programs to insure that our students and faculty have the support they need to be exceptional scholars, learners and teachers. Gifts from private donors support library events such as gallery talks, author visits and lectures, finals week de-stress activities, and more. Private funds also are used to purchase all special collections materials such as rare books, manuscripts and artifacts. In 2015, we used private funds for the renovation of the Reeder Media Center, which added two new high-tech classrooms, a production room and media lab. A fairly new initiative that is also funded through donor support is the Mosaic Program, which provides valuable, paid library work experience to W&M students and recent graduates looking to explore library careers. Without our donors, none of these programs and initiatives would be possible!
Last year, 318 donors gave to the libraries on One Tribe One Day, a 7 percent decrease from the year prior. This year, we have set a goal of 475 donors – a 50 percent increase! We think we can do it, but we need your help!
And our efforts to reach more donors may lead us to win one of this year’s prizes in the Gerdelman School and Unit Competition. The competition will award four prizes, one to the unit recruiting the most total donors, one for attracting the most new FY18 donors, one for the highest percentage increase and one for honorable merit. We have a good chance at winning the highest percentage increase and its $15,000 prize! Gifts of any size and to any Libraries fund will help us achieve our goal.
Join our conversation on social media using the hashtags #OneTribeOneDay and #WMLibraries. We will be sharing our stories and updating our competition progress throughout the day on our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram pages.
Visit www.wm.edu/otod for more information on One Tribe One Day and to get updates on giving numbers throughout the day on April 10.
