Skip to main content

Give Back to the MAC Student-Alumni Campaign Raises $14,100

As president of the college’s MAC Organization, Pappas and some of the student organization’s board members led a “Give Back to the MAC” campaign to raise funds for their program. They were building on a future alumni donation campaign launched by the 2009-10 MAC Organization’s officers which had raised several thousand dollars last year.

After learning from their accounting professors about the initial campaign, Pappas said his board decided to keep it going. He and several of his fellow officers tweaked the initial campaign, with the goal of increasing participation by MAC Program students. Their efforts were successful: they secured pledges of $14,100 to be paid over the next three years, with 47 of the 105 MAC students participating.

While the initial campaign raised a couple thousand dollars for the program with a small amount of class participation, Pappas said in an email interview with Poole College communications that “we felt that the campaign had great potential to have an immense impact on the MAC program. We also realized the importance of committing to give back to a program that had already provided so much for us. For example, the career services and CPA exam study resources that we utilized were provided partly by donations from past MAC alumni.”

“The faculty and I are glad that it was successful, and hope to continue this campaign on an annual basis, from here on out,” Pappas said.

“Our primary goal was not necessarily to raise a lot of money, but rather it was mainly to have a large amount of class participation in the initiative,” Pappas said. “We felt that if we could increase the number of participants; it would get students in the habit of giving back to the program after they become alumni, which would increase the amount of alumni donations that the program would receive in the future.”

The 47 MAC students who pledged this spring to the campaign was “more than four times the amount of students that had pledged the last year,” he said, securing pledges for more than double the amount raised in the prior year.

Each ‘Give Back to the MAC’ pledge was for $300, to be paid in $100 annual payments over the next three years. “Hopefully, this total will increase as some public accounting firms, where many of these students will be working, will match their contribution,” he added.

“We are very fortunate that the campaign was a success this year. Not only did we raise a substantial amount of money for the program, but we also proved that this campaign is a viable initiative for future MAC classes. As of now, the MAC faculty and the MAC Organization are planning to make this an annual campaign, which we can improve upon each year in the future,” Pappas said.

Photo

Attending an ice cream social celebrating the successful Give Back to the MAC campaign were, from the left: Dr. Kathy Krawczyk, Mark Weadon, Sarah Miller, Allayna Lopossay, Amanda Reeves, Megan Cappy, George Pappas, and Dr. Frank Buckless