Welcome to Fundraising Friday: AB Today's weekly digest of recent developments in development.
Wichita State University announced Thursday a $600,000 planned gift — restricted to future support of the Shocker baseball program — by 2014 National College Baseball Hall of Fame inductee and former Shocker head coach Gene Stephenson. In addition to the planned gift, Stephenson has committed $20,000 as an annual gift to the Wheat Shock Collective, intended to supplement NIL opportunities for Shocker baseball student-athletes.
Robert Morris University announced Wednesday that Class of 1982 alum Russ Olsen has establishing the Olsen Basketball Excellence Fund with a $1 million donation. The Olsen Basketball Excellence Fund will enhance various facets of the men's and women's basketball programs, including special projects, nutrition, recovery tools, equipment and technology, facility enhancements, team travel and recruiting efforts.
Former pro baseball player Jamey Price has donated $125,000 to the University of Mississippi athletics department to make available to current and future student-athletes the kind of health, strength and wellness coaching he received while pitching for Ole Miss, where he posted 21 wins, a 2.22 earned-run average and 189 strikeouts. “I was not healthy before I got to Ole Miss and was not healthy very long after I left Ole Miss,” Price said, according to a university announcement published April 29 by The Local Voice. “That’s what stands out to me: the people who were there were instrumental in helping me get healthy.”
This year's Purdue Day of Giving, held April 24, shattered records for Purdue Athletics., with more than 2,700 gifts surpassing $13 million in total contributions. "After the historic run by the Purdue men's basketball team to the national title game, which followed the squad winning the regular season Big Ten Championship for the second consecutive year, Purdue Day of Giving offered Boilermaker fans an opportunity to commemorate the team's season and bolster the entire department's unprecedented momentum," stated a May 1 release on the Purdue Athletics website.
Total amount of these gifts:
$14,725,000
