How One Zoom Meeting Raised Over $1k for the UCLA Latino Alumni Endowed Scholarship Fund via Pledgeling

by: Andrea Arias

My UCLA education was made possible with a scholarship from the UCLA Latino Alumni Association. After graduating this past March and joining the Pledgeling team full-time, I got more involved with the UCLA Latino Alumni Association and decided to combine my two worlds.

In December, the UCLA Latino Alumni Association had a fun ‘Ugly Sweater Soiree’ over Zoom to gather our community safely during the holiday season. Prior to the event, we did not set a fundraising goal because we weren’t planning to focus on fundraising, but rather on community. Then, however, we realized we were missing an opportunity to fundraise live. It was clear to me that Pledgeling's seamless technology was the solution the UCLA Latino Alumni Association needed to streamline fundraising during the festivities while maintaining focus on the DJ, games, and music, so I suggested it. The ULAA team thought it worked perfectly and decided to just see what happened if we offered an easy option to donate.

After setting up the Virtual Donation Overlay and text to donate in minutes, ULAA was able to raise a little over a thousand dollars in forty minutes! Now we have a thousand more dollars in our Scholarship Endowment fund to support Latinx students’ UCLA education. This was without planning a marketing campaign for our fundraiser far in advance! Having an easy text to donate option makes a huge difference.

I can’t recommend the Virtual Donation Overlay and text to donate enough to all nonprofits and alumni associations. We live in exciting times where you don’t need to throw fancy, expensive galas for your donors. One hour or thirty minutes of virtual programming can raise thousands of dollars for your mission - it’s that simple.

Join the #PledgeToDoGood! Now is the time.

Screenshot taken during this virtual event on Zoom when they surpassed $1k raised in 40 minutes!