By Isabella Senno
This year, Phil’s Week underwent a facelift.
“Phil,” short for philanthropy, is designed to ensure students understand the philanthropic efforts of alumniand others that allow them to enjoy certain benefits.
Courtney Blind, an associate director of Campus Philanthropy at the UI Foundation, described Phil’s Week 2017 as “a success,” attributing this in part to certain structural changes made.
“I think each year we just do a little bit more, we tweak it in order to make it more impactful, we find a targeted way to reach out to out a new group that maybe we haven’t reached out to in the past and … I think we’ve been pretty successful in terms of who we’ve helped,” Blind said.
This was the sixth year that time was dedicated solely to recognizing philanthropy on campus, but this year’s programming was extended to fill a week rather than just a day.
“In the past, we have always done Phil’s Day here on campus, and this year, in order just to extend our impact, we decided to program something for several days over the course of the week,” Blind said. “I think we were able to reach so many more students over the course of the week or more faculty were able to see what we were doing.”
Ryan Brennan, the incoming president of the Student Philanthropy Group, said this change allowed the event to become more accessible to students who may have otherwise felt overwhelmed by condensed programming.
“I’ve had several students throughout the week just ask me a little bit more about philanthropy, just to explain it a little more on campus, so based on the interactions I’ve had with a handful of students … they seemed like they had a very genuine interest in what we were doing and what we were trying to accomplish,” Brennan said.
A new event was also introduced called Faces of Phil, held April 26 on the T. Anne Cleary Walkway. At the event, students could sign thank-you postcards to donors, take Polaroids, and record video messages.
“We’ve always done postcard signings on campus trying to encourage students, faculty, and staff to help us thank our donors that make a lot possible on our campus and by doing this event we … wanted to help show students that they are actually a face of Phil, essentially because their education or time at Iowa is impacted by philanthropy whether they realize it or not,” Blind said.
Lexie Finer, the outgoing president of Student Philanthropy Group, said the interactive portion of this event combined with its visible location encouraged a mixture of students, faculty, and staff to stop by.
Phil’s Week programming for next semester has not yet been determined, but Jacinta Jargo, Student Philanthropy Group vice president for social media, said continuing to spread the message of what that this week contains is vital.
“It’s important because I don’t think as students that we realize that our tuition dollars don’t cover everything that’s happening on campus, that it’s because other people who don’t know us believe in our generation and our talent and gifts that they choose to support the university, which will allow us to pursue our own dreams,” Jargo said.
