The 10th annual 1869 fundraiser has officially come to an end. Over two days, athletics, student organizations and academic departments rallied the support of friends, family and alumni to collect monetary donations the programs can use for their needs.
The 1869 fundraiser is designed with prizes teams can win once they raise a certain amount of money. These prizes act as an incentive to stay engaged in the challenge to keep getting more donations. Prizes may match donations and encourage people to share with their networks to increase the number of unique donors (Trinity University 1869 Challenge). Among the varsity sports, President Vanessa Beasley agreed to award the teams with the highest dollar amount and most unique donors $1,500 each.
The Trinity Swimming and Diving Team won the most unique donors for varsity athletics with 214 donations, totaling $14,693.69. The team also completed multiple challenges within the donation period. Each time they multiplied the number of donors by 48, the team won an additional $5,000. Once they received 240 unique donors, two alumni donated $1,869 in additional funds. Cathleen Pruden, head swimming and diving coach, shared what the results of this challenge will allow the team to accomplish.
“The big focus for us was tech suits,” Pruden said. “Historically, we’ve been able to buy them for first-years and juniors. We’ve closed the gap where we’re going to be able to do that for everybody this year.”
The swimming and diving team found ways to share the donation link beyond just personal emails and texts. In order to rally donors, Coach Pruden shared how their team got the word out.
“We’ve definitely used Instagram a lot,” Pruden said. “That’s been our primary thing. I think we as a team take a lot of pride in our Instagram. We make personal texting appeals to people who we have in contact with, but I just tried to make sure we had a story up at least every hour of something a little punny and just giving folks the link again.”
Baseball raised the most money out of all varsity sports with a grand total of $42,257.79 from 125 unique donors. The team also completed the baseball challenge for reaching 120 donors (double the size of their roster), earning them an extra $1,869. Pitching Coach David Smith commented on the results of the team’s donations through email.
“The 1869 Challenge has become our biggest fundraiser event of the year,” Smith wrote. “Partly because we worked to make it such, and partly because Trinity does such a great job running the event.”
The team plans to allocate the funds to several necessities in the upcoming season. The donations from families, alumni and friends will support the team, and may translate to extending coaching.
“The cost of travel, baseballs, umpires and training equipment add up very quickly. In addition we are always looking to add extra manpower to our coaching staff to allow the players to get as much assistance as possible,” Smith wrote.
All club sports were competing for the most donors. The incentive for club sports teams to get donations was the first place of $500 for the team with the most donors. The men’s ultimate frisbee club team, Turbulence, won with 111 donors. In second place with 96 donors was the women’s and non-binary ultimate frisbee club, Altitude*, winning $300; the third place prize of $200 went to women’s club water polo. James Crosnoe, senior political science major and co-captain of Turbulence, commented on the importance of the 1869 challenge to the club and how they were able to rally support.
“[The 1869 challenge] is one of the most important ways we raise money because of the bonus prizes offered for most unique donors. The money we raised will help us buy jerseys and field our team at travel tournaments this year. Turbulence — and all club sports, for that matter — should be an opportunity to get outside and exercise for everybody. So we try our best to minimize the amount our players have to pay out-of-pocket to be a part of the team,” Crosnoe said.
*Maddy Morrow is a member of the Altitude ultimate frisbee club team.
