• fugawe09
    171
    Ah, here we are at Give Day again. I'm sure your email inbox is flooded with appeals.

    To the best of my knowledge, donations to annual operation of athletics teams or the athletic department are handled genuinely, minus the "development tax" Mrak Hall skims off the top. So by all means if you want to donate to TeamAggie or particular teams, go for it. But there are things you need to know about other types of donations -

    Scholarship/college funds - the appeals you get with a photo of a perfectly ethnically balanced group of students solving some problem that they received a scholarship for and they need your gift to continue. Sounds noble, but all is not all as it seems. A combination of the state and federal government decide what each student "should" pay. Let's say list price is $20k, but the factors say Johnny Student should pay $8k and the state pays $12k. Then Johnny works really hard to earn a $2k scholarship in that glossy photo that you donated toward. The $2k doesn't reduce Johnny's bill, he still pays $8k. The state's side of the bill gets reduced to $10k, but that $2k doesn't get sent back to the coffers in Sacramento. It now becomes flexible money for deans and vice chancellors to spend on things that get deans and vice chancellors recognized in Higher Education Monthly. Pet projects like diversity hugfest luncheons that you wouldn't have donated to, don't benefit many students, and are mainly make administrators look good. In most cases, Johnny Student will see more educational benefit if you personally hand him a $500 Safeway gift card than funnel a $2k donation through the UCD channels.

    Endowment funds for particular causes - some, like endowed professorships have something specific they are spent on. But other times, the recipient organization kind of forgets about them, chairperson moves on, whatever, and the money just sits even when it is desperately needed. Other times, the University eases back state funding by whatever amount the endowment yields so the recipient organization never actually sees a benefit. The Chancellor sees the benefit with extra state money now coming his way for more of those hugfest luncheons. But that's not the worst thing. As it turns out, Vice Chancellors can decide to reallocate endowments to other causes without telling the donors. And if the donors find out, they got no recourse. No refunds, no input, nada, nothing. In the fine print it says the Chancellor can do whatever with the money and can change any rules or donor contracts retroactively to whatever he wants whenever he wants. It's like worse than Facebook terms of service. You might think this doesn't happen - but it does at least occasionally and it happened to me. Shaun Keister, Vice Chancellor of Development, basically told us to pound rocks, that the amount of money being mishandled was too small for anyone to care, and that our voices would never be loud enough to matter. And he may be right, but here I am in some small corner of the internet doing my part to remind folks that behind the smiles and handshakes, the 5th floor of Mrak Hall doesn't give a hoot about your wishes, students needs, or the University. Their singular priority is to find a way to use your money to enhance their personal CVs by funding pet projects that you probably don't support.
  • movielover
    484
    Yeeez. I recall the Dobbins family made a sizable donation to finish the baseball stadium, and the campus sat on the money for a long time, maybe years ... one insider claimed the money was being held up due to gender equity politics. My understanding is that the family said, 'Build it, or we want the $$$ back'. In the meantime, construction costs reportedly spiked, so what we could build and add (lights?) was reduced.
  • Goags20172
    162
    I resent the idea of Give Day, being told when to donate. I give what I want when I want and getting text messages and calls asking for more irritates me. I block all the offenders and hang up on Annual Fund.

    Since I also gave money to Sac State's baseball program they put me on an email list I guess. Got the strangest message the other day. Clearly it was soliciting donations but it was a list of home events this weekend and they strongly emphasized that they were home events. Why would I care that they are home events if the public is not invited to attend ? They could be playing in Florida for all I care. There is likely a subtle hint here- donate more and magically become an invited guest of one of the insiders.
  • fugawe09
    171
    You know what, you’re right. My initial gripe was how I dislike how the university spends their money and who benefits. But I also dislike how they go about raising it. I remember when I was a grad student scraping by as a TA they used to call me monthly asking for $500-$1000 for the Chancellors fund and when I said I was a grad student, they suggested I donate with a credit card so I could pay it off over time. As if that was good financial advice. It’s interesting, the university I got my grad degree from calls me about once a year, mainly to see what I’m doing professionally because they may have undergrads looking for career contacts. The donation pitch was more like, if you have time take a look at our website. I was actually taken aback that I didn’t have to say no 5 times and hang up on them. Give Day is noted for the “challenge gifts” which it’s great if a company wants to donate $10k. But at the same time shame on them for predicating it on getting 50 other people to donate $5. If you have $10k to give, do it humbly and don’t make it a carnival game.

    that’s an unfortunate story about Dobbins. I’m all for diversity/equity/inclusion but I have really had it with the breed of university activists that cannot articulate what justice they seek other than blocking anyone else from having anything nice.
  • movielover
    484
    It's the opposite of strength and leadership.

    Dobbins Stadium started with Aggie players themselves manually completing some of the preliminary stages in the 1980s. Phil Swimley worked tirelessly, for no extra pay, along with Ralph Rago (sp?) and other community members, donating tens of thousands of hours. Have women's coaches ever done this type of labor?
  • BlueGoldAg
    1.1k
    I guess I'm an outlier on this thread...we just completed our annual Team Aggie donations and are happy to help.
  • BlueGoldAg
    1.1k
    A total of $410,646 was donated from 1,444 people to Aggie Athletics on Give Day.

    ied8atbq04mwhdzq.png

    The university as a whole has raised $3,442,457 from 5,655 gifts so far totaled.

    https://giveday.ucdavis.edu/giving-day/34890/set/2798
  • agalum
    294
    Personally I’ve had solid, professional contact from Athletics development and have never felt pressured.

    The chancellor’s discretionary funds have been an issue for a long time. Ask anyone with a grant, especially if it was privately funded. The university takes a huge tax off the top. Here is an area where Katehi was cleaning house. Grants and contracts showed significant improvement in efficiency under her, and relationships with the private sector significantly improved. Those relationships can end up with sponsorship for a variety of university programs, such as stadium improvements. MIT represents the model for private enterprise-university relationships.
  • DrMike
    649
    Part of the push for Give Day to give even a small amount is to boast our rankings. One criteria, and it’s big, is percentage of alum that donate. So getting a bunch of young alum to donate $25 means more than an old guy donated a big amount. We have a ton of young alum, not nearly as many donors in the age bracket to make bigger contributions.
  • 69aggie
    370
    Really wonder about the negativity on this issue. Hey, either give or not. No big deal. I dont see any pressure. This is really an athletic team donation choice. I have no idea if it did well or not. Like Momma used to say: its the thought that counts!
  • fugawe09
    171
    I suppose I should clarify that I believe athletics donations are held in a different pocket than other parts of the university and I have not experienced the athletics development department using car lot tactics nor am I aware of any financial scams involving team donations. But give day is not limited to athletics and other parts of the university (specifically chancellors fund) have a history of being aggressive fundraisers. I have a personal experience with an endowment fund that was established for a particular purpose with a written agreement that if said purpose was discontinued, the university had to consult with the donor group regarding the disposition. At some point after donations were made, the university red lined that and rewrote the contract to state they could do whatever they wanted. Well circumstances came to pass that the university rolled the endowment over to support a new cause without consulting the donors as originally agreed. And they didn’t just roll it to a general purpose fund, they rolled it to a cause in direct conflict with the original purpose. I now have money tied up not just in a fund I didn’t intend to support but specifically one with which I fundamentally disagree and find personally insulting and offensive. Perhaps isolated, but for me very personal and I think reasonable that I’m dissatisfied and distrusting.
  • Goags20172
    162
    Exactly. I don't understand why other posters feel the need to try to rally against negative talk, so long as the negative talk avoids personal attacks .
    Fugawe09 shared some information and some negative experiences, and you knew after the first post this wouldn't be a fluffy thread about how great Give Day is, so you have only yourselves to blame for being upset. It's fine to have differing opinions and to share them, but respect that people have different experiences from you and you shouldn't be invalidating them by being incredulous about all the negativity. Has anyone even bothered to say, "Hey Fugawe09 that's pretty messed up what they did to you. I've always had positive experiences in donating, so I'm disappointed to hear that you didn't" ?

    And on the subject of different experiences I will share that I don't feel motivated to donate more or attend the more popular sporting events because I do not feel welcome in the city or at the university. Not going to elaboarate on that because one of two things will happen.

    1) Crickets
    2) Someone will try to invalidate it.

    Sorry, not intending to hijack the topic.
  • movielover
    484
    Didn't something similar happen to the Cal Aggie Marching Banda endowment?
  • Oldbanduhalum
    589
    hmmm...the same thing happened to me. what a coincidence.
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