As cochair of the senior gift planning committee, Carlton Keedy ’14 was charged with encouraging his classmates to give to the Alumni Annual Fund. But in true Carleton fashion, he wasn’t interested in average results: he wanted to be the best. “We liked the idea of being record-breakers,” he says. “That became a major part of our campaign.”
Keedy and other committee members launched an ambitious effort to raise awareness of—and gifts to—the annual fund. The committee pulled out all the stops, says cochair Halah Mohammed ’14. “We used pom-poms, we had countdowns, we gave out Carleton swag.”
They asked classmates to give $14 each to represent their class year, but encouraged everyone to give whatever amount felt comfortable, even if it was simply the year-end balance of their meal plan.
In the end, the committee broke records for both participation and gift amount. The class raised $7,639, shattering the Class of 2012’s previously record total of $3,996. Sixty-five percent of the class contributed. After Mohammed collected the gifts that edged out the Class of 2004’s senior gift participation record, she couldn’t contain her excitement.
“I ran across campus to the Alumni Annual Fund office to deliver them,” she recalls.
And while the committee promoted the many reasons that students give to Carleton—giving thanks, providing similarly wonderful college experiences to incoming students, staying in touch with the college—Keedy says they mostly wanted their classmates to give from the heart: “for whatever reasons meant the most to them.”