Cornell will celebrate its seventh Giving Day March 11, in a 24-hour campaign bringing together Cornellians around the world to show their support for the university and compete in friendly challenges, a trivia night and more.

Last year’s Giving Day brought in more than $7 million from 10,145 donors. Cornellians – alumni, parents, students, faculty, staff and friends – showed their pride and trust in the university, with many giving directly to support scholarships and access funds to address the unique needs of 2020.

Giving Day 2021 offers donors the chance to support a wide variety of projects and areas across the university.

“Supporting Cornell on Giving Day is an exciting opportunity,” said Kristen Ford, senior associate vice president for Alumni Affairs and Development. “It enables donors to customize their giving experience in ways that are more personal, supporting any and all areas of the university that mean the most to them, while advocating for others to join them in their giving. Gifts add up quickly and have an incredible collective impact over the 24-hour period.”

“I choose to participate and promote Giving Day to help support the communities that made my Cornell experience incredible,” Afsaneh Faki ’20 said. “Without my dance teams, I have no idea what college would have been like, and I want to support those clubs so that they can provide the same experiences to many Cornell students to come.”

“I wouldn’t be where I am today if not for the help of alumni and those around me. Without them and the support they provided, my story might not have been what it is now,” Angel Gutierrez ’19 said. “It’s for that reason that I choose to participate in Giving Day. Not only to give thanks for the help that I received, but to give help to those who face the same challenges that I did. Giving Day is an opportunity to reach a hand out, and I plan on taking full advantage of it.”

While this year’s celebration will not include on-campus events, participants can tune in for online content throughout the day. Recent graduates and students will participate in a live trivia night, showing off their Cornell knowledge and competing to win challenge funds for an area they care about.

Additional gift challenges will include opportunities to win funds for different areas of Cornell by posting on social media, making the first or last gift in the 24-hour period, and encouraging friends and classmates from across the world to participate in the Big Red, White and Blue Challenge, or international challenges.

Gifts from young alumni and student donors this year will also count toward a $50,000 unlocking challenge for undergraduate scholarship support.

Colleges will participate in a Raise the Bar Challenge, competing against themselves to surpass last year’s number of donors to each area for a chance to win bonus funds, and several areas of the university will have gift matches for specific programs or funds, which increase the impact each donor can have.

“I’m honored to support AAP on Giving Day,” says Bruce Batkin ’75, College of Architecture, Art and Planning (AAP) Advisory Council co-chair, who is sponsoring an AAP Giving Day challenge. “I hope my challenge gift and match inspires other AAP alumni to give back to the school and university that’s given so much to us.”

Want to help make Giving Day 2021 a success? Sign up as a Giving Day Champion and get your friends, family and classmates to join you.

Kaitlin Provost is a writer for Alumni Affairs and Development.