When the Waynesburg University Office of Institutional Advancements held the first Day of Giving – a campus-wide fundraising event which allowed students, alumni, staff, faculty and anybody else to donate to the department or organization of their choosing last November, none of the campus’ athletic programs participated.

According to Stacey Brodak, vice president for Institutional Advancement and University Relations, giving athletic programs a chance to raise money to focus on their needs made perfect sense for the second annual Day of Giving.

“I would say really the reality is [athletics] has needs too, and honestly, it was just academic needs year one,” Brodak said. “There was no real strategy behind adding them other than it was a great thing to do, it made great sense – it was a great opportunity to include them.”

Both the men’s and women’s soccer programs took advantage of the opportunity, taking first place of the 17 departments that participated in the fundraising, and receiving $4,000 in funds as a reward. Soccer beat out the Department of Communication, who took first prize last year and won a second-place prize of $2,000 this year, and Biblical and Ministry Studies, which placed third and received a $1,000-grant.

For the 24-hour period that started at

midnight Thursday, Nov. 16, the university exceeded its initial goal of 650 donors by 502, ending with 1,152 donors from 34 different states that raised $205,250.09 The contest, driven primarily by social media, required a minimum donation of $10 and a point system determined the winners. An immediate gift via credit card or cash was worth two points, while a pledge was worth one. Associate Director of Development, Donna Nypaver was pleased with how the day turned out.

“We thought [the Day of Giving] was extremely successful,” Nypaver said. “We were very pleased to see the entire Waynesburg University community come together and support the university.”

Laura Heethuis, head coach of the women’s soccer team, did not know what to expect for her first experience with the Day of Giving.

“I don’t think we really knew exactly what was going to happen, especially knowing that communications won the year before, so we knew that they’d be pretty competitive with what they do too,” Laura Heethuis said. “A personal goal in mind about being able to afford a banquet and this and that, I think we were hoping that we’d just get [a $500 participation prize], so I’d say that was kind of the main goal. But everybody stepped up big time. We came through with a lot of donors and people willing to support.”

To Heethuis, adding the athletic programs to the day of giving added an element of pleasure for

the university.

“I think Waynesburg, as a whole, has done a really good job of kind of including athletics and trying to stir up a little bit more school pride among student groups on campus, whether that’d be athletics or department-wide,” Heethuis said. “Whenever you bring up kind of a competition, especially with people that work here in competitive sports and environments. That kind of triggers some things. So, [it was] definitely something that we got excited about, and kind of took hold of.”

Laura Heethuis, and her husband Brad, who coaches the men’s team, held a meeting with the players about two weeks before the Day of Giving to discuss what the event was and possible the opportunities through the donations. Laura Heethuis said that it was made clear that everybody knew where the potential funds would be going. The soccer team plans on using the $4,000 for new equipment, an end of year banquet, a video camera and an international trip that the teams take once every four years.

For Brad Heethuis, knowing what the money is going towards well in advance is essential information that the donors deserve to know about.

“I think it’s big,” Brad Heethuis said. “For our players to know exactly where the money is going towards, but also for the donors. For everyone to be able to say ‘hey will you donate however much, when it is going towards X, Y and Z?’ Something tangible that they can see as benefitting their son or daughter, or relative or whoever. Making sure they know where that money is going towards is big.”

According to Brodak, one thing that the office of Institutional Advancements will look to improve for next year and beyond will be making sure that everybody knows what the departments plan on using their money towards.

“The one thing I would point to that we had feedback from the athletic programs, from [Instructor of Biblical and Ministry Studies] Josh Sumpter, from some of the folks who were real successful in raising and getting support was that donors like to know how you’re going to use the money,” Brodak said. “One of the things that we heard from a lot of our people who were making calls and talking to people is they really liked when they could tell [the donors] ‘this is what we’re going to do.’”

Brad Heethuis hopes that the Day of Giving will help kids appreciate their college experience him, his wife and other college graduates did when they were in school.

“Soccer is a small part of a kids four years here,” Brad Heethuis said. “Hopefully it’s a great part, but we have things like Day of Giving that…they’re soccer-specific, but also university specific. I think it shows definitely a lot of pride in soccer, but also in the university as a whole. I think it’s just another thing that if we can get kids on board with, we can give them kind of an [undergraduate] college experience that is all-encompassing, but also one like we had that we really enjoyed, and we want the same thing for all of our kids coming here.”

Any department of an athletic program that had 50 donations from 50 individual donors received a $500.00 participation prize. The football program, Fine Arts department, Criminal Justice & Social Sciences department and the wrestling program all were winners of the participation award.”

For Brodak, the best thing about the day was that it showed what Waynesburg means to those who the university has impacted.

“I think that is probably the best part of the whole event,” Brodak said. “[The donations are] a testament that they believe in not only the school, but they believe in the students, they believe in the experience [at Waynesburg]. It’s part of the mission of faith, learning and service, and when people understand how important it is to give back, that they feel needed to do that, even while they’re students here, I think that’s exactly the kind of spirit that we hope to nurture in our students,” Brodak said.

For the second straight year, the Day of Giving surpassed its goal for the donations. Brodak hopes that the trend will continue in 2018.

“I think we used this year as a new baseline,” Brodak said.  “We have a new baseline for next year, both on the number of departments participating, and maybe what we think we can achieve, what we know is possible.”