KU News Release

KU Endowment to match 5,000th gift made online

LAWRENCE — Doubling a gift to the University of Kansas has never been easier.

Nearly 5,000 online donations have been made to the university via KU Endowment. To celebrate this milestone, when a donor makes the 5,000th online gift at kuendowment.org, KU Endowment will match it up to $500. The match will support the same area as the donor’s designated gift supports.

Every Monday morning, KU Endowment will refresh its Match the Milestone page until the 5,000th online contribution is reached. The lucky donor will be contacted and will be asked to share his/her story through KU Endowment’s Web site, magazine and other media.

The number is getting close. As of Dec. 12, there were only 434 gifts to go.

December is the month when the overwhelming majority of online gifts are made, so the numbers change quickly every day.

Donors have been giving gifts to KU online since 2001. The first online gift, made in January that year, was $50 for the School of Law. Since then, gifts have been made to hundreds of departments and programs throughout the university. In the 2008 fiscal year, more than $400,000 was donated to KU online. The average online gift was $258.

December is usually the biggest month, but the record was set in April 2008, when 193 online donors gave a total of $27,233 to a fund established to celebrate the national men’s NCAA basketball championship.

KU Endowment is the independent, nonprofit foundation serving as the official fundraising and fund-management foundation for KU. Founded in 1891, KU Endowment is the first foundation of its kind at a U.S. public university.

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The University of Kansas is a major comprehensive research and teaching university. University Relations is the central public relations office for KU's Lawrence campus.