A Top-Shellfie Effort

If you see the hashtag #shellfie floating around online today, know that it’s not a typo. As part of the University of Maryland’s seventh annual 24-hour fundraising push called Giving Day, backers are encouraged to post a turtle-pride selfie to boost momentum—and support—for the university, while maybe winning cash for their program or school. 

From midnight to 11:59 p.m. today, Giving Day rallies alumni, faculty, students, staff, parents and friends of the university to pledge financial support across a range of more than 600 areas that they care about, from scholarships to academic units to student groups. 

“Over the course of these 24 hours, our community comes together to support our university’s core missions, which include learning, teaching, research, the arts, student life and public service,” said President Wallace D. Loh. “Today, each of us has a chance to give back and make a difference.”

Throughout the day, prizes will motivate various groups of supporters to give their all. During specific windows of time, units will get an extra boost for the most parent donors, most faculty and staff donors, most alumni donors or other categories. 

Social media campaigns include awards to winners of a “fill in the blank” post promoting their cause, #IGave and #GivingDayUMD posts and office photos. Plus, Facebook or Twitter posters who use #GivingDayUMD and a unit hashtag will be randomly selected to win $200 for their unit, and 10 people who add #shellfie when they show their Maryland pride and post a pic will win $100 each to donate to their favorite unit.  

Loh has added an extra motivation for this, his last Giving Day before retiring: He and his family will match every student gift up to a total of $10,000. The Clarvit family (made up of two generations of Terps) is offering the same match, and the Schwab family has committed $50,000, a portion of which will be available as a challenge grant to three academic or administrative units with the biggest number of faculty and staff donors between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.

Last year, Giving Day raised more than $2 million for the university and its programs from 6,703 donors; since 2013, 28,770 gifts have contributed to a total of $6,508,012. Show your support for Giving Day by posting on social media using the hashtag #GivingDayUMD—don’t forget your #shellfie—and browse through the programs and units you can back at givingday.umd.edu.