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Fundraising Committee members Peter Wozniak, Stephanie Artnak, and Laura Koenig
Law students are busy people. In their final year, in addition to classes, there are preparations for the bar exam, job searches, submissions to the law journal, participation in clinics, and raising $67,500 in pledges for a class gift. Okay, so not every student is part of a class that accomplishes such fundraising—just the members of the Class of 2007 Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington.
For the student committee members who were able to break school and national averages in fundraising, they could not be prouder of their classmates’ generosity. And they couldn’t be happier that over 53 percent of their class decided to pledge a five-year commitment to support their alma mater.
“We have always said our class is extremely close, helpful, and friendlier with each other than most classes,” says Laura Koenig, a co-chair of the Fundraising Committee. “We always said we were the best class ever.” So when the committee members met in the spring, they felt they could go beyond what was expected of them. And they did.
The month prior to graduation, committee members reached out to their entire class about raising funds for their school. Their message was simple: Tuition pays for salaries, facilities, and about half of the Law Library costs. But for organizations such as the Indiana Law Journal, the many law clinics, and student groups, private support is a major part if not the entire source of funding.
“For most of us, I think those experiences were some of the most rewarding from law school,” says Peter Wozniak, a committee member. “And if you got a scholarship to attend school, you knew that somebody before you gave that money so you could be here.”
With a motto, “Our Legacy: Make It Personal,” committee members found many classmates were open to making a gift. That was impressive, considering their audience consisted of people who may or may not have known about their future employment, and likely had some debt. Their strategy was not to ask people to give now, but over the course of five years, starting in 2008.
“Everybody had something they were thankful for, and that was a great reason for them to give to those groups and causes,” says Stephanie Artnak, a committee co-chair. “But most of the people gave unrestricted funds.” Any fundraiser will tell you that those are the most difficult dollars to raise. But at the Law School, it is those monies that can make or break a student organization’s budget, since they support sudden costs or supplement budgets for programs that don’t reach their funding goals.
Laura says she even feels that those who chose not to give weren’t closed to the idea of supporting the school later on. And for that, she’s happy because the committee’s goal was to help young alumni understand that giving back should be part of their lives as alumni. “I think we held people to the notion that we are just this great class,” she says. “And now, I know that this is how we’ll be remembered.”