Big Red Beats Blue in Annual E/a Challenge

For the second consecutive year, Exeter and Andover competed in a young alumni donations challenge during the week leading up to E/A fall sports competitions. This fundraising event aims to raise donations from each school’s fifteen youngest graduated classes, and tallies the results by number of donations, not by total amount raised.

The Exeter/Andover Challenge “came about through conversations between me and my counterpart at Andover, as a way to increase young alumni participation in giving to the two schools,” Assistant Director of the Exeter Fund Lee Frank said.

The competition began four years ago with a break in the 2012-2013 school year. All three times, Exeter has edged out narrow victories, last year by only 32 alumni donations and this year by 36.

The first year of the competition, only 484 gifts were given total, between Exeter and Andover. The next year, Exeter’s and Andover’s alumni gave a total of 2627 donations, which was an incredible increase in participation. “In the past two years, [the competition has really taken] off,” Frank said. He attributed this to better marketing and communication with alumni at both schools.

“In the past two years, [the competition has really taken] off,”

After finding themselves behind during the initial days of the challenge both years, Exeter pushed towards victory through social media sharing updates on the challenge via Twitter, Facebook and Instagram using the hashtag #bluedoesntflyhere, and making additional videos featuring religion instructor Russell Weatherspoon and Director of Alumni and Parent Relations Harold Brown.

Weatherspoon described the E/A Challenge as “an appeal to alumni,” which he has been asked to play a role in during the two previous years of the competition. While willing to participate in the video, Weatherspoon hoped not to be asked again next year, as it “would suggest that our alumni are chronically waiting until the last minute to donate.”

In fact, in the last 27 hours of the competition, 750 Exeter alumni donated, making up more than half of the total 1288 donations over the course of the week. This mirrored what happened in the 2013 challenge when on the morning of the last day, Exeter alumni donated 377 gifts in just three hours to secure a win by 31 gifts.

The competition is strategically scheduled near the Exeter/Andover games, when alumni and students are more likely to be in touch with the Exeter campus and the rivalry with Andover. Additionally, all donations go to the Exeter Fund, which supply the school with 9 percent of its annual operating budget and is spent over the course of the school year. The Exeter Fund is described on the Academy’s website as “the highest financial priority [...] each year.”

Weatherspoon explained that donations from young alumni will help “train [them] to give back and support this school, and ensure that others continue to have the Exeter experience.”

Audrey Zheng ‘14 said she has always planned on donating because “everyone owes a huge portion of our Exeter experiences to the generosity of others,” she said. “I figured I might as well [donate] through the challenge and help raise our flag over Andover.” Zheng also posted on Facebook about the challenge to “do everything in my power to prevent the Andover flag from flying over campus,” she said. 

Yeji Jung ‘14 said that while she thought that the challenge “is definitely a shameless plug for donations” she is still “fine with that.” Jung, as someone who couldn't have gone to Exeter without the substantial financial aid she received, has “always been incredibly grateful for the fact that Exeter has the funds it does, and those funds are mostly from donations,” she said. Exeter wants it to be more about the participation and spirit rather than this “shameless plug for donations” since “gifts of all sizes are appreciated, and less important is the size of gift and more important is that there is a gift,” as Frank said, “The prize goes to the school with the most gifts, and not the most dollars.”

Jung also felt that all the work Institutional Advancement put in, such as the videos and posts, to encourage donations “was effective because [she] did donate.” Jung also explained that by feeding the Exeter/Andover rivalry, more alumni were willing and interested in participating. “Seeing everyone get pumped about it over social media made me pretty nostalgic for and proud of Exeter, and of course I'll take any chance to beat Andover.”