Students, faculty, staff and alumni across the country donated nearly half a million dollars SIU’s second annual Day of Giving event held Wednesday.

Currently, 1,492 gifts are equaling up to $441,377 said Jim Salmo, Vice Chancellor of the SIU Foundation.

“It was nice to see unity and investment in the institution,” Salmo said. “We could never say thank you enough.”

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Salmo said he expects both numbers to increase as the foundation continues to count gifts turned in to the university in person, rather than online.

Next week Salmo said the foundation will know the final gift count and amount raised for this year’s Day of Giving.

SIU’s Day of Giving was first held last year as a 24-hour fundraising campaign for donors to directly support a section of campus that is special to them. Salmo said the donations were fairly distributed across campus.

Salmo said there was excitement across Carbondale because of the Day of Giving.

“It raises a level of pride,” Salmo said.

One of the goals of this year’s Day of Giving was to beat last year’s amount of $341,000, Salmo said.

“We can say we went beyond it by $100,000,” Salmo said.

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He said the university follows a national trend of other universities increasing their donation amounts by 30 percent.

In comparison to last year’s Day of Giving, Salmo said the amount of the average gift increased from last year.

“We raised $100,000 more for roughly 100 more gifts,” Salmo said.

When counting the gifts donating yesterday, Salmo said the university will be looking to see how many of the gifts were first-time donations.

“That’s important,” Salmo said. “If you’ve never had someone making a gift before, and then they did on this day; Wow! That’s big.”

The four top groups that raised the most money include, School of Medicine raised $42,480, Touch of Nature raised 27,745, School of Law raised $26,590, and College of Agriculture Services raised $16,801 according to the Day of Giving website.

College of Mass Communication and Media Arts raised $26,861 from 53 gifts.

College of Agriculture leads the top donors with 203 gifts, followed by School of Medicine with 136 gifts, College of Applied Sciences and Arts with 128 gifts and College of Education and Human Services with 100 gifts, according to the Day of Giving website.

The City of Carbondale declared March 7, 2018, as the SIU Day of Giving on Feb. 27, according to a university press release.

The day commemorates the university’s founding day, 149 years ago.

Campus editor Amelia Blakely can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @AmeilaBlakely.

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