Giving Day 2026

Thursday, March 13, was Cornell Giving Day, a 24-hour fundraising frenzy when Cornell’s friends and alumni were called upon to donate to specific on-campus organizations, athletics, and academics. Giving Day is akin to a free market in philanthropy, where many causes are visible in their fundraising success. Unlike most of Cornell’s fundraising for current-use funds (which are not publicly disclosed), Giving Day is transparent and encourages competition between various Cornell causes for donations. Giving Day reveals the philanthropic preferences of Cornell’s donor base.

Overall, Cornell raised $11,345,462, up slightly from $11,206,717 last year. There were 17,011 donors, down from 17,591 donors in 2025.

Giving Day is facilitated by a website that contains a separate page for each cause, replete with colorful photos, enticing text, and videos – all designed to convince a donor to choose a gift amount and donate. Each cause can recruit matching donors or donors who release a bonus gift once a certain benchmark is met. 

A  new feature this year was President Kotlikoff interviewing two undergraduates about their Giving Day causes and personal fundraising efforts. Kotlikoff’s point was that Giving Day helps to build community by both the shared fundraising and also by the projects funded.

The website also featured a new arcade-style game where digital apples are collected across campus. Bonus gifts were awarded to the causes whose donors delivered the most virtual apples. The Cornell Laboratory for Ornithology won $500 for having the highest score during the day. In addition, another $2,500 was divided among the top five areas in proportion to the number of digital apples harvested.

Alumni were brought to the website through repeated emails, Facebook campaigns, social media posts, postcards, and solicitation phone calls. Although most gifts were made during the 24-hour period, Cornell allowed large donors to make gifts in advance, particularly to fund the matching gifts or bonus awards.

The website guided users to relevant causes by dividing its pages into broad categories: Animal Health, Arts, Big Red Spirit, Community Engagement, Diversity and Inclusion, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Environment, Experiential Learning, Health and Wellness, Humanities and Social Science, Public Policy, Science, and Student Access. A new category called “Areas of greatest need” promoted unrestricted giving to broad areas in the discretion of those deans. The treatment of “student access” separate from “diversity and inclusion” marked a different approach, perhaps due to the controversy surrounding “woke” aspects of campus culture. 

There were fewer causes with individual pages this year. The development office tried to cut back on causes that failed to raise at least $1,000 last year. So, fan favorites such as the LAASP Professional Machine Shop did not have a page this year, but one could still donate through a universal form that did not display donors or cause-specific totals.

Donors Named

Each page listed most donations by name. Some donations were anonymous, and others were made under inventive names such as “President Trump” or “Cornell staff member.” The listing of donors would encourage their friends to donate as well. In the case of the Cornell College Republicans, donations were made in honor of famous Cornell Republicans from the past, such as Barber Conable ‘42 or Dan Meuser ’88.

Day Hall Administrators and Trustees were encouraged to donate generously to various visible causes. VP for Student and Campus Life Ryan Lombardi donated $1,000 to the Student and Campus Life Annual Fund.

Trustee Martin Scheinman ’75, MS ’76, matched $25,000 for donations to the ILR Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution.

Law School Dean Jens Ohlin donated $5,000 when 50 Law School faculty and staff members made a gift to the Law School. University Librarian Elaine Westbrooks donated $5,000 after 50 Cornell faculty or staff members made a gift to the Library or the Cornell University Press. 

Alex and Laura Hanson ‘87 matched $200,000 in donations to the College of Arts & Sciences with a gift directed toward the A&S Annual Fund. A&S Dean Peter Loewen matched gifts up to $10,000 donated by A&S Parents. The A&S Program on Freedom and Free Societies had a $5,000 match from former Trustee Robert Platt ‘73. Gifts to the Math Department were matched 2:1 by an anonymous donor up to $20,000.

Colleges

Most of Cornell’s fundraising efforts are based in its colleges. The top college Giving Day totals were:

In turn, each college separately sought funds for specific departments, programs, and scholarships. The ILR School dropped from second to eighth place.

Athletics

The largest beneficiary of Giving Day was athletics, where 6,440 donors gave.$2,680,079, down from $3,036,661 in 2025. These donations are used to pay coaches’ salaries and travel expenses. These funds do not pay for scholarships, NIL, or other direct compensation to student athletes. The top sports by total donations were: Football raising $264,788 from 537 donors; Men’s Soccer raising $189,992 from 483 donors; Men’s Ice Hockey raising $177,348 from 223 donors; Sprint Football raising $153,754 from 463 donors; Baseball raising $148,129 from 148 donors; Rowing raising $146,681 from 511 donors; and Track and Field raising $132,495 from 449 donors.

The top sports by number of donors were: Football, Rowing, Men’s Soccer, Sprint Football, Track and Field, and Gymnastics, which raised $47,399 from 397 donors.

Top Student and Campus Life Causes (non-athletic)

Student and Campus Life drew $1,318,442 from 4,319 donors. Although many causes had their own web page, donors had the ability to designate any registered student organization to receive funding. The top 6 list retained the same order as last year.

The Sorority and Fraternity Life office performed very poorly, with seven donors giving $775.

“Woke” Causes Did Not Attract Substantial Funding

Although each college had a DEI fundraising cause, most of them provided an opportunity to donate without listing the totals raised or the number of donors. This is understandable given the Trump Executive Orders prohibiting federally funded programs from promoting DEI. However, there was a page for “Bowers CIS – Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging” that raised $1,202 from 18 donors in 2025, but had no page for 2026. The Dyson Office of Diversity and Inclusion raised $885 from 13 donors. The Johnson Graduate School of Management Office of Diversity and Inclusion raised $1,185 from 12 donors

The Africana Studies and Research Center raised $5,068 from 33 donors. Loving House raised $3,010 from 21 donors. Ujamaa raised $2,220 from 29 donors. The Latino Living Center raised $800 from 12 donors. Black Students United raised $775 from 9 donors in 2025, so it lost its separate page in 2026.

The “Scholars Under Threat” raised $27,393 from 28 donors in 2025 using a $25,000 2 for 1 match from an anonymous alumna. It did not have its own page in 2026, so we don’t know its totals for this year.

The “Global Grand Challenge” of Global Cornell did not attract any gifts in 2025 and did not have a page in 2026.

Class Breakdown

Each donor was required to specify a graduating class when making a donation. The donation totals by class were evenly distributed, with a bit of a drop-off for the oldest classes. The top fundraisers were classes from the 1980s and 1990s, which represent the peak earning years of Cornell alumni. The Class of 1981 fell from first place to third place.

The class rankings based upon number of donors are topped by all of the recent classes due to on-campus fundraising events and special matching challenges directed toward students and recent alumni.

Cornell had 4,994 acceptances into the class of 2027, which means that the Giving Day participation rate for that class was 9.9%.

The overall Giving Day trend is downward over time for this important fundraiser: However, the average gift size is up this year.

Possible explanations include the recent stock market downturn, Cornell’s uncertain relationship with the Trump Administration, and the negative publicity Cornell received in the national media during the past year.