7th Annual CU Give Back

The Seventh Annual CU Give Back campaign pulled in more than $200,000 in 24 hours and attracted more donors than ever before.

The virtual, 24-hour giving campaign, held November 3, 2022, featured 53 participating groups, including sports programs, student scholarships, and many student-run clubs and organizations. Each group crowdfunded its support and competed to see who could raise the most.

“We were really amazed at how many donors and how much support we had for all groups,” says Haley Marrujo ’14, MBA ’15, assistant director of annual giving and alumni engagement. “It goes to show that people value and love Concordia and want to continue to see us succeed in the Orange County community. It was an inspiring day.”

Student Preston Leptich founded the disc golf club in 2020 to hold tournaments and give students a chance to connect and compete with each other. Leptich designed the Concordia disc golf course and participated in CU Give Back to raise money ($580, to be precise) to support the club, whose goal is to create an official team to compete in college disc golf events.

“CU Give Back went very well for our club and we can’t thank all of our generous donors enough,” says Leptich. “With the money we raised, we will be able to buy team jerseys and disc golf markers that have Concordia branding. We will also be able to pay for the gas it will take to reach the regional qualifiers for the national college disc golf championship in Tempe, Arizona.”

The program attracting the most donors (78) was baseball, followed by women’s basketball with 63. Raising the most dollars this year was the Concordia Fund (nearly $29,000), followed by the music department ($19,076), and the Golden Eagle Athletics Complex ($17,290).

In other results, the Veterans Center raised $3,000 from 30 donors. The marine biology lab $1,500, and the handbells expansion project more than $4,000. Full tallies for the successful event are available at cugiveback.cui.edu.