Spotlight

Students join Foundation efforts by the hundreds

An ambitious group of students launched the Student Foundation Board in 2006 to work with the ESU Foundation, cultivating donors, assisting Advancement staff and raising funds on their own. How many students do you think they’ve recruited to the cause?

Fifty would seem like an outstanding number. Well, try 346. That’s how many had expressed interest by November. The group hopes to mold the momentum into one of the largest and most functional student organizations. Angela Blaufuss, the group’s president, had seen similar groups have success at other Kansas universities. She saw “how much it’s helped other universities, and we decided it’s something we needed,” she said.

The group will act as a liaison between students and the Foundation and its Board of Trustees, assist in the cultivation and stewardship of alumni and friends, and organize fundraisers. If you saw the Christmas lights in the trees in front of Plumb Hall this holiday
season, that was the group’s “Light the Night” project to raise funds for scholarships and the local United Way.

One reason the group formed was the students’ desire to connect with donors of all giving levels. Blaufuss said a small gift of a graduating senior, for instance, can quickly add up. In fact, the group’s long-term goal is a senior class brick project in which a senior can monogram a brick to permanently display on campus.

ESU welcomes the support. Sandy Kramer, the interim executive director of the Advancement office, is the group’s sponsor. “I was overwhelmed by the student response,” Kramer said. “To have hundreds of students volunteer their time is remarkable, and it’s meeting one of our goals, which is to engage younger alumni and establish a strong connection to ESU. Angela actually spoke to the Foundation Board in the fall about the group’s plans, and the board members were very enthusiastic about it. We’re very excited to see where this goes.”

The campus interest in development hasn’t stopped with the undergraduates. Dedicated pockets of support have formed among faculty members, graduate students and community members to fund student scholarships within many of ESU’s academic
disciplines as part of the Building Blocks for Success scholarship campaign.

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Last Updated April 17, 2008