Fun(d) Raising

As I age as a faculty member, I find that I am becoming involved in more fundraising activities for the College. I do some informal fundraising with our alums to add to the department’s Restricted Fund and Diversity Fund. You’ve probably seen one of my thank you letters [1].

More recently, I’ve been asked to donate to the annual Class Auction Fundraiser. As I understand it, they have faculty members donate things that soon-to-be alums then bid on. I’m told that this years donations created some bidding wars. What did I donate? I donated a copy of Experiments in Java, the lab manual I wrote a decade-and-a-half ago. I donated a set of Women in Computing cards [2]. And I donated a Grinnell Flask [3].

I also encourage students and people I know to donate during the annual Day of Giving [4]. This year, Athletic Directory Andy Hamilton helped raise some funds by agreeing to dye his hair scarlet if a certain number of folks affiliated with athletics donated.

All of this got me thinking … are there ways that I could participate more in these activities, and have fun with it. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far.

• For the annual one-day drive: The Rebelsky hair challenge. If fifty CS alums and fifty percent of CS majors donate to the College during the one-day drive, I will allow Jonathan Rebelsky to cut my hair and shave an Honor G into my head.
• For the class of 2018 auction: Musings. Students can bid on the opportunity to choose the subject for a musing.

Hmmm … I thought there were others when I sat down to write this musing, but I guess I’m feeling less creative than I thought I was.

What do you think? Are these good fun(d)raising activities? What else should I think about? And how to I fundraise for the department in addition to fundraising for the College?

[1] That reminds me … I owe some letters to our very generous donors.

[2] Last summer, my research students tried to get rid of them when they cleaned out my lab.

[3] It appears that the Grinnell bookstore has stopped selling the flasks, at least temporarily, which makes them a bit of a collectors item.

[4] Or whatever they call it.

Version 1.0 of 2017-07-18.