College of Charleston's CofC Day 2024: By the Numbers

The fifth annual CofC Day kicked off at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 13, 2024, with the theme of Give Back to Our Future. In a nod to the College’s founding in 1770, the day continued for 1,770 minutes, ending at 10 p.m. on Thursday, March 14.

Since the College of Charleston community came together in celebration and to demonstrate its engagement and commitment through philanthropy, the College has accomplished a lot – much of which is thanks to the generosity of donors. For example:

• The College hosted Dig South’s Charleston AI Summit.
• The Senior Thesis Art Exhibition opened in The Marion and Wayland H. Cato Jr. Center for the Arts.
• The College’s men’s basketball team won the CAA championship and made it to the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
• The women’s basketball team made it to the second round of the WNIT.
• Men’s basketball welcomed a new coach, Chris Mack.
• The College celebrated Sustainability Week.
• The CofC community both cheered on runners and ran in the Cooper River Bridge Run.

The College would not be able to do so many things to enhance the student experience and create opportunities for the Charleston community without donor support. That’s why CofC Day is so important to the College. During CofC Day’s 29.5-hour period of celebrating philanthropy, 2,161 donors gave $856,276.

To incentivize giving, challenges that unlocked at certain donor levels were in place.

• Thanks to Mark Buono ’81 and Judy Buono ’22, $50,000 was gifted at the 750-donor milestone.
• The Terry L. Maple, Ph.D. Memorial Challenge awarded $75,000 at the 1,200-donor milestone.
• The Zucker Family Challenge awarded $100,000 to the College when the number of donors reached 2,000.
• Chris and Connie Hadley set up a $50,000 Hadley Parent & Family Challenge to encourage parent support, with 198 parents making a gift.
• The Foundation Board generously funded $25,000 to encourage recent graduates to participate in CofC Day.

With the goal of creating a fun competition among schools and units, Justin McLain ’98 set up a challenge that awarded achievements by schools or units across campus. The following schools and units received gifts to their excellence funds:

• The Student-Athlete Development Fund was awarded $15,000 for the largest number of donors: 471.
• The School of Business Dean’s Excellence Fund was awarded $15,000 for the most dollars raised: $107,948.
• The Honors College Dean’s Excellence Fund was awarded $15,000 for the highest percentage of alumni participation: 3.53%.

“CofC Day serves as an opportunity for our entire campus to come together and celebrate the College of Charleston and Give Back to Our Future,” says President Andrew T. Hsu. “I am so grateful to everyone who supported the College on CofC Day. The gifts ensure we can continue our liberal arts and sciences tradition for future Cougars.”

On CofC Day, the College and the Lowcountry CofC Club held a celebration in the Cistern Yard with food trucks, games and music. As part of the lucky draw at the event, three students received a $500 scholarship.

In addition to the Cistern Yard celebration, from London to Los Angeles and Boston to Austin, 21 CofC Clubs hosted parties with nearly 950 alumni, parents and friends in attendance.

“No other CofC tradition is a catalyst for immediate and direct philanthropic support like CofC Day,” says Dan Frezza, chief advancement officer. “It has the power to bring alumni, students, parents, faculty, staff and friends together to change the lives of our students. We are grateful to our Cougar Nation for stepping up, supporting the area of campus that means the most to them and ‘Giving Back to Our Future.’”

Thanks to the generosity of the College community, CofC Day raised much-needed funds in support of the university’s students, programs and infrastructure. Not only was it a day to Give Back to Our Future, CofC Day brought a flood of memories to the College of Charleston community about why the university holds a special place in everyone’s heart.