When Vanderbilt launched Giving Day on April 21—a new tradition for alumni, students, faculty, staff and friends to show their Commodore love through a 24-hour online campaign—nobody could predict how far the “give for the gold” spirit would spread.
However, when the counting stopped at midnight on April 22, 6,640 members of the Vanderbilt community had joined together to raise more than $1.6 million dollars to support the university.
Two especially spirited Reunion classes, ’91 and ’06, launched multiple skirmishes to claim hold to the crowns of most dollars raised and largest number of class donors.
Meredith Britt, BS’06, said Reunion class competition was brisk from the start.
“As soon as I woke up on the West Coast, I checked and quickly noticed that a few years, like ’91, were moving far ahead,” said Britt. “We have our 10-year Reunion in October and theirs is a 25-year Reunion, so each class has extra motivation. My husband Jon and I just reached out and asked everyone to step up, to make gifts and to tell their friends.” The Britts are serving as Reunion attendance co-chairs for their class.
Meanwhile, the Class of 1991 was doing everything they could to edge out their younger rivals. Approximately 6,300 miles around the globe from the Britt family in L.A., Warren Pullen, BA’91, was reportedly scouring the Beijing airport to enlist support from fellow alumni. With classmates Wes Powell and Frances Thompson as part of the cheering team, the 223 members of the Class of ’91 raised $71,631 from 223 members.
“Giving Day started at noon my time in Hong Kong and by the time everything ended the next day, I was in Beijing. I couldn’t stay off the Giving Day website. It was a nail-biter, and we didn’t want those 2006 kids to beat us. Texts and emails were flying around between classmates right up until midnight. As for Reunion, we are really trying to surpass the all-time record for class participation. These days, we have so many more communication tools to help us reach out to the class. And we want to emphasize attendance and fundraising participation of any amount,” Pullen said.
“As the son of a college professor, Vanderbilt’s reputation for undergraduate teaching really drew me to the school. I loved my professors and the whole undergraduate experience—that’s why I give back,” Pullen said. Pullen serves as the social impact chair for his Reunion class.
At the end of the day, both classes won—the Class of ’06 for number of donors and number of gifts and the Class of ’91 for total dollars raised. But the true winners are the future Vanderbilt students who will benefit from scholarships and other support that Giving Day funds.