Tufts Lacrosse #GivingTuesday Appeal

Dear Tufts Lacrosse Parents, 

I hope that you enjoyed a great Thanksgiving Holiday with your families, friends and your sons! While you had them, I MISSED them, so it is great to have them back around the office for the home stretch of the first semester!

I know this has been a challenging semester, and I want to thank you all for your patience, understanding and support. I know I say that we can’t do it all with you, but this fall was absolutely a testament to the resilience and support of you all as parents! Thank you all so very much!

As you may know, today is Giving Tuesday, and many of you have asked how you can help. One way to help is to make a donation to the program today – every dollar counts, so whether it is $10 or $10,000 we will put that money to use to give your sons the best possible college lacrosse experience and position ourselves to compete for our 13th NESCAC championship and FIFTH National Championship! 

Below, in an email to our alumni, I have outlined where your donations go, but if there are specific items or purposes that you wish to focus on or discuss (meals, gear, etc.), I would be more than happy to discuss. 

If you would like to give, – TGT Athletics Giving Page  OR  https://give.tufts.edu/schools/TuftsUniversity/tuftsgivingtuesday/pages/athletics

and click “Give Now” and then select “Lacrosse (M)” from the drop down menu. Credit card, Venmo, ApplePay, GooglePay, and PayPal are accepted. These gifts count immediately and are reflected in leaderboards and team challenges. For Venmo and digital wallet options, the online giving form (at the link above) must be completed first, followed by the option to use digital payment – payment cannot originate directly from the apps. Gifts via DAF, foundation, securities, or wire transfer are also accepted. While the gifts may not arrive on GivingTuesday, your commitment can be counted towards the day’s challenges.

Also, just an FYI that we have received a very generous Challenge Match – We are fortunate to once again have a challenge pool that will match all gifts to Men’s Lacrosse, dollar-for-dollar, up to $27,500.  This matching challenge has been generously offered by a group of alums and parents and we want to meet and surpass this goal on the day, so your gift doubles the impact!

Finally, we have led the charge in department philanthropy over the last half decade. As you can see by the numbers, our alums and parents are second to none in their generosity, and it is no wonder that this program just continues to improve and improve. 

Past Impact for on Giving Tuesday - Men’s Lacrosse

• 2023: 169 donors - $158,966
• 2022: 185 donors - $128,358
• 2021: 191 gifts - $127,442
• 2020: 88 gifts - $31,640
• 2019: 171 gifts - $51,170
• 2018: 191 gifts - $115,403
• 2017: 382 gifts - $27,804
• 2016: 33 donors - $11,259
• 2023 All Athletics: 4,368 donors | $1,233,626 (52% of all donors and 31% of all dollars university-wide)
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Thank you for taking the time to read this and if you can give today, we greatly appreciate it. I know that much is asked of you as parents of this program, and I am incredibly grateful for all that you do for us. 

I am always available if you want to talk or discuss (860-966-0878) so don’t hesitate to reach out. 

Thank you! 

Casey

P.S -  if you’d like to speak directly to our development office, you can reach Mark or Than with the info below: 

Questions?

Than Finan: nathaniel.finan@tufts.edu or 413-884-2584 (c) | 617-627-4517 (w)

Mark Adzigian: mark.adzigian@tufts.edu or 203-526-9649 (c) | 617-6270376 (w)

Dear Jumbo Lacrosse Family,

Happy#GivingTuesday, and I am so grateful to be writing to you in my ninth year as the Mike Daly Head Coach of Men’s Lacrosse at Tufts University – home to the four-time National Champions, and 12-time NESCAC champions!

The purpose of this email is twofold; similarly to the email updates I send out, I hope to inform you on the program’s progress and give you insight to the needs of the program, and in addition, I am writing today in order to appeal to each of you and ask for your help in order to support and continue to improve this unbelievable program.

One of my main goals in running this program continues to be making sure that we provide THE BEST college lacrosse experience in the country for our student athletes. As you may or may not know, fundraising is essential to provide that experience on a day-to-day basis. Whether it is a larger, essential endeavor such as recruiting, or adequately paying (to keep) great assistant coaches, or something small such as adequate meals on the road, every fundraising dollar is key for us to provide that first class experience.

Just last year, with the donations that our alumni generously gave, we were able to pay for 100% of the salary of one of our assistant coaches, travel costs of over 40+ Recruiting Trips, two different film breakdown programs, more than 250 heads and shafts, a phenomenal trip to the Mustang Classic, Nike cleats and training shoes for everyone, new practice shorts, new helmets, gloves, and arm protection for every member of the program, and an increase in our social media presence, influence and recruiting capabilities (in addition to so many other day-to-day needs we were able to meet).

Each year we have a solid budget provided to us by the athletics department, but our needs – as listed above – greatly exceed our current budget. For example, here are the costs of some essential expenditures that we make each year that are not fully covered by the athletic department budget:

• Spring Break Road Trip to play Christopher Newport & Stevens Tech: $40,000+
• Flights & Weekend Trip to Mustang Classic: $30,000+
• Food for Locker Room and Team Meals: $25,000+
• Recruiting/Professional Development: $25,000+
• Hardgoods/Equipment/Sticks: $20,000+

In addition to our annual travel, and equipment costs, one area where we continue to place great emphasis is on our social media presence. In speaking with many recruits and our current players, it is clear what high school players want and what they don’t want. What they want is to be on social media, and they want to get their information from social media. What they don’t want is to open emails. So, we have spent the last few years investing in our presence on social media – particularly Instagram (@tuftslacrosse) where we have more than 53,000 followers and more than 2 million monthly engagements from alums, recruits, coaches and fans – and provide visuals (photos and videos) that reflect our program and text and captions that capture our core values and speak about what we value most. By posting new content daily, we are able to reinforce – to our recruits, club coaches and high school coaches – what we are all about and get even more high school student athletes excited about Tufts Lacrosse, and hopefully reach a broader audience than we would if we were just sending out emails on a semi-regular basis. This active social media push not only engages recruits, but we also hope to more strongly connect and engage our current alumni base and pay homage to the people that give us everything we need to be successful and also built this great program from the ground up. Therefore, while it is nice to have nice things (and you are all incredibly generous and allow us to have nice things), we continue to allocate more of our monetary resources in this direction for the foreseeable future so that we can continue to recruit the best players in America, and also engage with our incredible alumni, parents and friends of the program.

Therefore, every dollar that you donate is impactful, and it doesn’t matter whether you donate $20, $200, or $20,000 – we will put each dollar to use.

Three initiatives that we are hoping to provide this year are:

1. Flights to travel to the Mustang Classic / We are very excited to return to the Mustang Classic in 2025, but given our distance from Baltimore, and that it happens prior to the start of Spring Break, rather than drive the eight hours to Baltimore, we are hoping to fly in order to save time, save legs and keep our young men in the classroom longer. This trip will allow us a back-to-back format to prepare us for the NCAA tournament as well as a neutral site venue to play a regular season rematch of the National Championship game vs. RIT.
2. Continuing to provide more food and drink fueling options for our team / Through your generosity, we were able to do this last year by providing healthier, protein rich snacks and meals in the locker room and prior to games, and we noticed that our team was physically more well prepared for practices and games because of it. I would love to continue to offer this to our team in 2025.  
3. Providing cleats and training shoes for our team / Over the past three seasons, we have been able to provide our men training shoes and cleats, and the difference it has made in our lower body health and preparation cannot be undersold. Through generous donations over the past three seasons, it has made a huge difference in performance, and allowed us to look more uniform on and the field, during training and while traveling. In an effort to give our men a “Division I experience” I believe that this initiative continues to be a step in that direction.

Now that you have an idea where your money goes, how exactly can you donate? You have two options:

You can go online - Online – TGT Athletics Giving Page OR https://give.tufts.edu/schools/TuftsUniversity/tuftsgivingtuesday/pages/athletics
and click “Give Now” and then select “Lacrosse (M)” from the drop-down menu. Credit card, Venmo, ApplePay, GooglePay, and PayPal are accepted. These gifts count immediately and are reflected in leaderboards and team challenges. For Venmo and digital wallet options, the online giving form (at the link above) must be completed first, followed by the option to use digital payment – payment cannot originate directly from the apps.
Other Giving Options
 

Gifts via DAF, foundation, securities, or wire transfer are also accepted. While the gifts may not arrive onGiving Tuesday, your commitment can be counted towards the day’s challenges.
 

Or, if you would prefer, you can send a check – made out to “Trustees of Tufts College” directly to Mark Adzigian (1988 Tufts Lacrosse Captain) in the Development Office at:

Mark Adzigian, A88
Senior Associate Director of Development for Athletics
Tufts University 
80 George Street, Suite 300-2
Medford, MA  02155

Keep in mind that all donations are tax deductible and the development office will keep a record your donation.

Also, just an FYI that we have received two very generous Challenge Matches – We are fortunate to once again have a challenge pool that will match all gifts to Men’s Lacrosse, dollar-for-dollar, up to $27,500.  This matching challenge has been generously offered by a group of alums and parents and we want to meet and surpass this goal on the day, so your gift doubles the impact!
 

And with participation like that, we can continue to run a first class program, and give the players and the coaching staff everything we need in order to put Tufts Lacrosse in position to compete for a National Championship each and every year.

Finally, if you are interested in donating to the Mike Daly Men’s Lacrosse Endowment, please contact me directly.

Thank you in advance for your incredible support of this program, and to those of you that have already donated, we are already greatly benefitting from your contributions.

As always, if you have questions, comments or feedback, do not hesitate to reach out to me directly.

All the best and Roll ‘Bos!

Casey