MEPI Roundtable: Fundraising
At the beginning of the fall semester, the MEPI students were a buzz about one event: Donate to Educate. The initiative was launched by the students and seeks to raise enough funds to provide a deserving and under-privileged student a scholarship to study at LAU.
Since this initiative is so important to all the MEPI students Dr. Marwan Rowayheb, the MEPI student life coordinator, set up a fundraising round table for all the students to attend. The fundraising roundtable took place on November 14th and was facilitated by LAU’s own Nassib Nasr, assistant vice president for Development. The development department in LAU is responsible for raising money for campaigns and pioneering new programs and projects. Mr. Nasr talked to the students about his personal work and how he has worked for many years to raise funds for the projects he feels passionately about. He discussed the pillars, techniques, protocols, tools, and fundamentals of fundraising.
Mr. Nasr discussed all the things you must take into consideration during a fundraiser. First and foremost you must have passion, and he repeatedly stated, “Fundraising starts when you feel passionate about something”. You must also possess ethics, a sense of belonging to the group you’re working with, and a cause you care for deeply. The MEPI students were very excited to hear what Mr. Nasr had to say, since Donate to Educate was something all the students felt passionately about and they all understood how important it is to give back and help someone attain a distinguished education.
The roundtable included a presentation, in which Mr. Nasr went through all the steps of pulling of a successful fundraiser. The presentation included everything from handling costs to finding the right audience.
All the points were very important for the students, since they had planned to launch the first fundraising event in the Donate to Educate initiative the following month. The students got many ideas and received many pointers from Mr. Nasr regarding their campaign, such as coming up with slogans, advertisement material, and attention grabbing mottos and phrases that can be used in any fundraising campaign. Also discussed at the roundtable was how to approach donors and how to ask for donation intelligently and without pressuring them. Mr. Nasr delved into how to set goals and objectives, create plans for the fundraiser, set a mission and vision for the future, and explained the pillars of fundraising in detail.
The fundraising roundtable was a huge success, and the students enjoyed the discussion thoroughly.