As Eastern Washington University works toward a $100 million goal for its 10-year comprehensive campaign, it’s gearing up for what is hoped to be a record-breaking Giving Joy Day next month.

“Giving Joy Day is about not only giving joy to Eastern but giving joy to our region,” says Barb Richey, vice president of university advancement and executive director of the EWU Foundation. “It’s about creating that financial goal for our programs and our students.”

The annual one-day fundraiser will take place April 3, which also marks the Cheney-based polytechnic school’s 143rd birthday.

The Giving Joy Day goal this year is $550,000, which would surpass EWU’s previous record of $511,000 that was set last year.

“This is a particularly interesting time because we just went live with our public phase of our comprehensive campaign in October,” Richey says.

EWU’s first-ever comprehensive fundraising campaign, titled Build Our Future, began in 2017 and has a goal of raising $100 million by 2027.

Although the campaign recently entered its public phase, it has already reached over $73 million. About $67 million had been raised before the public phase began in October.

“I love the aspirational goal that we have, but really, it’s not about that,” Richey says. “It’s about giving and philanthropy and what intrinsic value that has.”

Giving Joy Day will contribute to the Build Our Future campaign.

Donors who participate in Giving Joy Day can choose to donate to any of the roughly 400 funds listed on EWU’s fund explorer page, or they can create their own fund.

There are funds for various scholarships, school programs and departments, athletics, internships, renovations, and more.

“All gifts matter, and paying it forward matters too,” Richey says.

Giving Joy Day is run by a mix of students, faculty, alums, and others who will act as social media ambassadors, push out a text-a-thon, and make calls to potential donors.

In an ode to EWU’s 143rd birthday, donors can give gifts of $14.30, $143, or $1,430, or any other amount they’d like.

“It’s just a fun way to capture the essence of how long Eastern has been in the region,” Richey says.

While the total dollar amounts raised have grown over the years, Richey says the number of donors has decreased—a trend at higher-education institutions that the Journal has written about in recent years.

Richey contends that the age of donors may contribute to that trend.

“We need to bring in the younger grads and really encourage philanthropy,” she says. “We need to do a better job, too, of prospecting and just educating people, raising awareness of why private gifts matter.”

The size of donations has risen partly because of donors who include EWU in their wills, she says.

“We’re seeing more estate gifts realized,” Richey says.

The need for private donations is increasing, she explains.

“We just don’t get exclusive state funds anymore,” Richey says. “We have to kind of build our model based on private universities and colleges.”

She continues, “We’re a teacher’s college, right? We don’t have doctors and lawyers, so we have to just tell our story, double down on it.”

Giving Joy Day began in 2016.

Initially, the fundraiser took place on Giving Tuesday, a global movement that occurs on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving each year.

In 2019, however, Giving Joy Day was moved to April 3 to commemorate EWU’s birthday.

The biggest change to the annual fundraiser since its beginning has been the way social media is used, Richey says. It allows for better outreach to donors and more instant recognition of donations.

“Social media has created a great opportunity for us,” she says.

Individual donors make up the majority of Giving Joy Day participants, however some businesses make large contributions each year.

Numerica Credit Union and STCU, for example, typically make  donations to EWU or its students on Giving Joy Day, Richey says.

While the school and its students benefit from the fundraising, Richey says the donors do too, particularly because they can see their gifts in action.

“It automatically goes over to financial aid and scholarship, or it goes into equipment or supplies that they need in the classroom, or student internships,” she says.

Donations are accepted throughout the year at EWU, not just on Giving Joy Day.