Friday Focus: Super-size your UA Giving Day impact

Feb. 17, 2023

— By Owen Guthrie, vice chancellor for student affairs and enrollment management

UA Giving Day is next week, Wednesday and Thursday, Feb. 22 and 23.

During last year’s Giving Day, 700 donors gave nearly $700,000 in gifts to UAF. This year, donors have committed to over $620,000 in giving challenges alone! Go to the website and check out some of the great challenges to super-size the impact of your gift. With your help, we are poised to smash last year’s record. 

Many UAF employees are donors and if that’s you, thank you. Giving Day is a system-wide effort, but I invite you to represent your commitment to UAF next week. To that end, the amount raised by us is important, but total participation is even more important, and the key to increasing those numbers is you. Many staff and faculty are already our champions, sharing their stories so friends and neighbors can see how amazing our students are. Giving Day is a way to do that together so our shared stories are amplified. Consider becoming an official champion for our university so you can receive additional resources.

This giving campaign may seem counterintuitive. Why should we give more when we give so much?

We all work for and with amazing people who give deeply of themselves to our cause. The great people on the Student Affairs and Enrollment Management teams give to our students every day. It is our passion. We also give to one another and to our staff and faculty colleagues. We are not alone. So many at UAF give so much. We all give of ourselves during our daily work and many carry their work home. We give sleepless nights, long days, and weekend hours. We go above and beyond because we believe in our students, in our research, and in the value of our work. It sounds like hyperbole, but when you see employees not just doing the work it takes to keep up, the work to keep us running, but also doing the extra work that advances us all toward a better place, it is beyond humbling. UAF employees are covering for colleagues who are sick, taking care of aging or sick parents, and juggling an array of life’s challenges while still carrying the flame. I am sure you know many who make hard choices in the balance of home, family, and our mission — and choose our mission. That is breathtaking.

So, why should we also give in this way? Why give more? Giving is a deeply personal decision. We all give for different reasons and to different causes. This year, I am giving to support the UAF Honors Program Climate Scholars fund because I’ve seen how powerfully it engages and inspires students across Alaska and the U.S. to attend UAF. What area is most meaningful to you?

We are in the business of improving lives and these funds change people’s lives. Also, this is an opportunity to communicate to the outside world our level of caring and commitment to UAF. It is hard for some to see the long hours and sleepless nights given by our teams. But if every single person at UAF gave something in this campaign, it would communicate our devotion and our resolve in a singularly amazing statement.

Simply put, we give in honor of how much we give. We give in honor of those around us who are advancing our cause in the face of enormous personal challenges. We give for ourselves because we believe in our mission and because we find purpose and joy in our work. We commit and take on sleeplessness, worried hours, and stressful years. We give because we care for one another and because we believe in the larger good of what we are doing.

This year’s Giving Day is going to be amazing. Scroll down the page and check out the challenges or click on one of the UAF Areas of Interest that catches your eye.

Sign up to be a champion and share with your social networks. The dollar amount does not matter. Ten dollars, a hundred dollars, a thousand dollars. Make sure to make your voice heard.

Our work — your work — is so important. Thank you!

Friday Focus is a column written by a different member of UAF's leadership team every week.