In another attempt to get creative in order to improve the auction, the idea of a summer earnings drive has been tossed around. Basically, the idea is a donations drive at the law school, to get students with paying summer jobs to pledge some of their summer earnings to the EJF summer scholarship fund. At some schools, they call it a 1% club, encouraging students to pledge 1% of their summer earnings. Other schools suggest a donation of 1 day's salary. When you are getting paid bunches at a law firm, this adds up to some good money for the EJF fund! Still other schools just expand this concept and hold a no-holds-barred pledge drive at the law school in the spring, asking people to contribute anything they can from their summer earnings. This could be a HUGE success and new tradition for EJF. The schools that do this bring in $8,000- $11,000 from students alone! That is not even including law firm matching programs!
We should not be hindered by the fact that we have not done this before, or the possibility that it might not work perfectly the first time around. Let me know what you all think about this, and ways we might be able to implement the drive.
Other schools w/ pledge drives:
Penn State (Dickinson):
"Students Funding Students Campaign: One of PILF’s main fundraising activities is the Students Funding Students Campaign, a one-week pledge drive in
which students and faculty receive T-shirts, mugs, hats, and pens in return for their generous contributions to fund fellowships. Faculty members pledge matching funds for each class year.
Columbia:
"2002 PILF Summer Salary Drive
Raises Over $10,000... Students working for law firms typically pledge from $150 to $450, while students working for public interest or government organizations usually pledge from $10 to $50. All of the money raised through the Summer Salary Drive goes directly to Columbia Law students through the PILF Student Funded Fellowship program. "
Notre Dame (PDF)
Seattle University pledge donor form
Stanford: (from their 2001 annual report)
"Summer Pledge Drive: The 2000 Summer Pledge Drive raised $11,570. Of that amount, $8,650 came directly from student contributions, and the remaining $2,920 came from law firm matching."
3 quick things:
1) I like the new website, and I think this blog is a great forum for you guys to provide news and bounce around ideas.
2) Your link in this post for "Penn" is actually for Penn State (Dickinson).
3) I think the summer pledge drive is a great idea. If we implement it at GW, I would probably pledge 1% of my summer salary -- especially if you do something special for the "1% Club" -- even if it's as simple as making t-shirts or throwing us a party.
Posted by: Scott at February 3, 2004 10:27 PM