The Tufts Student Fund (TSF) campaign on Wednesday will kick off its third year of collections with a larger online presence, more student involvement in the fund's committee and features like a "text−to−give" function and a new slogan.
The Tufts Fund for Arts, Sciences and Engineering established the fund in 2008 in response to the economic downturn to ease student financial stress. The funds raised go to a single student each year who needs help paying his or her tuition bill.
This year's TSF slogan, "It's better to give than to receive," represents the campaign's redefined focus on student participation, rather than monetary accumulation, according to senior Kyle Sircus a TSF Committee co−chair.
"It's something that was mildly provocative but in the best way possible," he said. "It really is meant to be something that's really truthful to the campaign. It's meant to be about participation but also about giving back to the school that we've received so much from."
Two anonymous alumni donors have this year promised a combined matching donation of $50,000 if TSF can encourage at least 1,852 students to contribute by the time the campaign ends in April, Sircus said. The number of participants corresponds to the year the university was founded.
The lessened emphasis on the total amount of funds raised is due to criticisms from students who have challenged TSF's impact given the university's already comparatively high tuition.
"That's why we're going focus on the number of student participants rather than a total dollar amount," he added. This is a way to make it much more about the act of giving as opposed to how much we're giving, Sircus said.
TSF last year generated more than $40,700 from both student donations and matching grants from two anonymous alumni.
Senior Daniel Slate, the TSF Committee's other co−chair, said he expects this year's donations to accumulate to the full value of one student's tuition by the time the campaign ends in April.
"The goal is to make the biggest impact … and the full scholarship makes the biggest impact," he said. "The student fund's $50,000 is something they don't have to pull from their operating budget."
Volunteer coordinator for the Tufts Fund for Arts, Sciences and Engineering Sarah Pease said that while TSF in previous years has been mostly staff−driven, she has seen an increase in student involvement on the TSF Committee, which runs the initiative.
"We have a student committee that is far larger than last year," she said. "There's always student involvement, but this year they've really driven the efforts."
Slate agreed that the campaign will this year focus on meeting the alumni donors' challenge rather than the monetary amount of students' contributions.
"This year, we're really focusing on the challenge," he said. "We want people to think of this as not a monetary donation but as a participation challenge."
To help meet the donors' challenge, TSF is also directly challenging student groups. The campus student group that reports the most donors among its members will receive a prize, a method that Slate said will mean more recognition for students who choose to donate.
The administration, rather than TSF's student leaders, are entirely responsible for choosing the student who receives the collected money, according to Sircus.
"The decision is entirely handled by the financial aid office," he said.
The office has in the past given the money as a scholarship to rising seniors whose neediness may have changed since they came to Tufts.
The increased use of online media and social networking sites, Sircus said, has helped to popularize the campaign.
"We are really relying on our Facebook page; we'll have Twitter updates," he said.
Pease said the fund has been collecting video messages and other online−media messages from alumni encouraging students to donate.
"We have a number of alumni who have come on video and said why they give to Tufts, what a Tufts education has done for them," she said. "We're hoping that it will be a momentum to the campaign to have a video and online presence, to really use word of mouth to … spread the word about the challenge."
As a new feature, TSF will also enable students to give to the fund using their cell phones.
"Students will be able to text a given number, and it's an automatic $5 donation," Sircus said.
Jenny White contributed reporting to this article.
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Correction: This article has been changed from its original version, which incorrectly identified Daniel Slate as a TCF Committee co-chair. Slate is a TSF co-chair.
