Donors Ensure Successful Fourth-Annual Champions Achieve Campaign

DAVIS, Calif. — 725 donors contributed a total of $360,207 during Champions Achieve, the UC Davis intercollegiate athletics department's fourth-annual fall fundraising campaign. The average donation amount was just shy of $500. This year's sum is the highest earning since the campaign shifted from seven to five days in 2021 and is nearly a 21 percent improvement over last year's effort.

The five-day event consisted of an email, phone and social media-driven crowdfunding effort from October 3-7. Participants contributed to the Aggie athletic program of their choice during the campaign, which ran during the lead up to the UC Davis football homecoming game against Montana last Saturday.

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"Every year it's fun to see how our coaches, student-athletes, and development team connect via social media, texts, emails, and phone calls to produce a great fundraising campaign. This year we really focused on leveling up our gifts and it's clear the message was received based on the number of large gifts that led to a record setting campaign. I'm grateful for everyone who stepped up to make an impact during Champions Achieve," said Liz Martin, the UC Davis Senior Associate Athletics Director, Development & Alumni Engagement.

The generosity of UC Davis alumni, family, friends and other members of the Aggie athletic community helps ensure a strong financial backbone for the university's 25-sport athletics programs.

"Our donors set the tone early this year, stepping up to exceed all previous Champions Achieve records and we cannot be more thankful for their generosity", said Director of Athletics Rocko DeLuca. "Our teams continue to show not only financial stability, but the financial growth needed to support key competitive investments into the future."

Ten percent of all donations made exceeded $1500, which helped propel 13 programs to meet or exceed their campaign fundraising targets including baseball, beach volleyball, cross country, field hockey, women's golf, men's soccer, swimming & diving, women's tennis, men's tennis, track & field, volleyball, men's water polo and women's water polo.

A full set of Champions Achieve results can be found at the Crowdfund UC Davis website. Fans, families and alumni may continue supporting UC Davis athletics at any time of year by joining Team Aggie.

Both bearing the "CA" initials, Champions Achieve, is a direct descendant of the Champions Adapt challenge, which was phased out in October of 2020.