Join the Club fundraiser falls $80,000 short of goal

The inaugural Join the Club initiative concluded after having raised $18,568 of its $100,000 goal. The fundraising period officially ran April 11–19, but will remain open through the end of the academic year due to the fact that not all student groups garnered support during the campaign, according to Executive Director of Annual Giving and Donor Relations Kitty Bartlett. 

“We raised $18,168 and we were able to reach 195 different donors, which I think is amazing,” said Annie Delehanty, assistant director for student organizations and club sports.

Join the Club is a new effort piloted by advancement this year, according to Bartlett. Advancement also partners with students to fundraise in a number of ways, including the Proud to be a Panther campaign, MiddStart, MiddGoal, Senior Class Gift and the Student Engagement Center, Bartlett wrote. Although the Student Activities Office (SAO) and the Office of Advancement facilitated the initiative, fundraising was primarily student-run. 

Some of the top fundraisers were Mens and Women’s Club Soccer, Riddim World Dance Troupe and the Charter House Coalition. As of April 23, those four organizations had raised $10,957, or 59% of all funds raised. 10 clubs have yet to raise any money.

The initiative began with the opportunity for student organizations to select into the campaign between December 2023 and February of this year, which would ensure their eligibility and prioritization for donations. 

Donations were collected on one website, where donors could directly select the clubs to which they wanted to donate. 

A marketing toolkit emailed to participating student organizations by Delehanty detailed a number of tips and tricks clubs could use to increase fundraising awareness among potential donors. 

The coordinators of the campaign encouraged participants to post and repost content relevant to their fundraising on Instagram and LinkedIn in the Join the Club toolkit. They also recommended that each club recruit alumni, parents and friends to help disseminate information. 

The schedule for April provided by the toolkit detailed a preparation period of April 3 through April 10, where clubs could consolidate information and plan for their individual fundraising campaigns, and then a strong push for outreach during the week of April 11 through April 19, when fundraising would be open to donors. 

In an interview with The Campus, the SAO’s Senior Coordinator for Student Organizations Emma Barrett ’24.5 described the successes of the fundraiser and the factors that contributed to the amount of funding clubs received.

“There are some orgs it went really, really well for, and for some, not so much. It depends a lot on the organization. There are some organizations that have done a lot of individual outreach and have seen results from that, and others who haven’t done as much outreach on their own,” Barrett said. 

Delehanty commended the cleverness and creativity with which some student organizations conducted their outreach during the campaign. 

“The Log Rolling club did a ‘If you donate this much money, I’ll balance on the log for this many minutes with no help,’ and they posted those videos online for donors to see. There were a lot of fun ways for students to get involved and get creative and share their passion and love for their organization,” she said. 

President of the Log Rolling Club Angie Como-Mosconi ’25 credited the club’s success to the work of the treasurer, Tyler Hadar ’25. The group primarily relied on sending email reminders to its mailing list of 431 members, all past or present log rollers. The club also kickstarted its Instagram at the beginning of the semester, which it used to spread the word, according to Como-Mosconi. 

“We have a couple goals for the upcoming year, including  designing merch (we made stickers this semester), tournaments (eventually, hopefully) and rolling gear (like log rolling shoes for people to use),” Como-Mosconi wrote in a message to The Campus. “We have a great community of rollers, so we knew they'd show their support. Tyler and I are very grateful for everyone involved in the club.” 

For next year’s Join the Club fundraiser, Delehanty hopes to provide student organizations with more information and tips about attracting donors earlier on in the year, so they are better prepared come fundraising time. 

“I think a more in-depth rollout on our end would really help the student organizations understand what they are signing up for, and be more prepared to roll out and share the message of their organizations,” she said. 

Barrett noted that connecting the SAO with the Office of Advancement was important for the campaign, because it allowed them to view and use the alumni and donor information that the Office of Advancement frequently works with. 

“It was wonderful to partner with the SAO and student leaders to help raise funds for their student clubs and organizations. We enjoyed seeing student groups have success through the fundraiser and were glad to support them with guidance on fundraising best practices as well as through digital outreach to Middlebury alumni,” Bartlett wrote in an email to The Campus. 

Barrett currently serves alongside Christopher Fridlington ’24 as co-president of the Middlebury Architecture Table, an academically-affiliated student organization that is looking forward to putting the money it received through the campaign to use. Their club received $400 — meeting 50% of their overall goal — from six donors, according to the “For Every Future” website.

“We’re going to be using the new funding to basically fund additional trips and getting students outside of Middlebury’s campus, and experiencing some of the world-class architecture that this greater region has to offer,” Fridlington told The Campus. 

“For us as an organizer, it is going to allow us to probably do several trips next year, or a larger trip and take more people. It’s really exciting.” he said. 

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Cole Chaudhari

Cole Chaudhari ’26 (he/him) is a News Editor. 

He previously served as a Copy Editor and as a Staff Writer. Cole is double-majoring in History and English & American Literatures and is interning this semester at the New England Review.