Final numbers from Tarleton State University’s first ever day of Day of Giving Campaign are being questioned and one anonymous source claims that the participation rate was inflated in a last ditch effort to meet a goal of 1,899 donations.

A source close to the situation who wished not to be identified, has raised concerns regarding the totals that were released. The source indicated that the total of 2,472 participants was inflated, using numbers from Sigma Chi’s Derby Days and Alpha Gamma Rho’s Crawfish Boil. The source said Tarleton added numbers from these and other Greek fundraising events to the totals in order to reach Tarleton’s Day of Giving and Service Week goals.

Furthermore, the caller claimed university officials were aware that the dollar amounts reported would not go back to the university, and instead, were given by individuals to be donated to charities and organizations outside of Tarleton during Greek fundraising events that happened to take place during the Week of Service.

Kyle McGregor, Vice President for Advancement and External Relations, says the focus of Day of Giving is to raise awareness about the importance of giving.

“The decision was made by Tarleton State University sororities and fraternities to give to their specified, or their selected philanthropies, rather than the Tarleton State University Day of Giving.” McGregor said “The spirit of the day was about engaging students in philanthropy so we chose to count their participation, but not the dollars they raised [in the totals reported]. So we counted their participation toward our participation goal. We’ve been very transparent about that the entire time and shared that with anyone who has asked.”

Dylan Fisher, president of Alpha Gamma Rho, has disputed McGregor’s statement, saying that his organization was never asked to provide specific participation numbers, “[McGregor] called me the day of [the Crawfish Boil] and asked me to put a jar out on the table to collect money. We raised a few bucks, people put a few dollars in the jar but Dr. McGregor didn’t know how many people were there because I didn’t talk to him about it.” Fisher said” We presale tickets to 450-500 people, then they can pay at the door but neither of us gave anyone specific numbers from the Crawfish Boil.”

The source also stated that the Division of Advancement and External Relations staff met the afternoon of the Day of Giving and held an unofficial vote to decide whether or not to include numbers from Derby Days and other Greek fundraising events in their totals, including both funds raised as well as counting the number of volunteers present at these events. The source stated that the vote was not unanimous and several people present voted against this effort, stating they felt it was unethical to include these counts in the totals raised.

According to the anonymous source “the Day of Giving numbers would not have been reached, if not for a last-ditch effort made to reach their goals by including data from Alpha Gamma Rho’s Crawfish Boil and Sigma Chi’s Derby Days.”

McGregor intercepted JTAC News’ efforts to speak with additional employees of his division who were involved with the Day of Giving, however, he did admit that the goal would have not been met without including participation numbers from Greek Events.

McGregor agrees “Without Tarleton’s Greek philanthropic participation during the Day of Giving, the goal of 1899 participants would not have been reached in a 24-hour period. However, the campaign would have remained active during the following day in order to achieve the goal.”

“There are no hard and fast rules for days of giving, we did adjust during the course of the day.  This decision was made due to the fact that Development staff had attended sorority and fraternity meetings to encourage participation during the Day of Giving, however, we did not learn until the Day of Giving that the groups chose to participate with other philanthropies. ” McGregor said “Regardless of what charitable organization received funds, the spirit of the day was to encourage Tarleton students to practice service through philanthropy. This was accomplished.”

Darrell Brown, Executive Director of Student Engagement, the office that sponsors Greek Week at Tarleton indicated he was not aware of joint efforts between Greek life and Day of Giving. “Greek Week was not organized to support Day of Giving. Greek Week’s focus was to provide Greeks an opportunity to become unified by participating in various activities and show support to the University. I am unaware of any Council’s fundraising efforts that were in conflict with the Day of Giving” Brown said.

According to Brown, the Greek Week committee met to discuss what to do with the money raised from the Penny Wars, a Derby Days event, and he suggested that the money go to one of the Greek chapters’ philanthropies.

“The idea was that all of the chapters’ philanthropies would be placed in a drawing and whichever one was chosen would receive the proceeds. I’m not sure if it was at this same meeting or another one when I made the suggestion to add the Day of Giving into that drawing” Brown said

Derby Days is an annual event hosted by Sigma Chi that involves a week-long charitable fundraising competition between fraternities and sororities benefitting various charities and organizations. Former Sigma Chi’s President, Tyler Daniels, was contacted for an interview by email but did not respond.

Crawfish Boil is an annual event hosted by Alpha Gamma Rho, all proceeds go to help those affected by multiple sclerosis. On the day of the boil several hundred pounds of crawfish, sausage and corn are cooked in order to feed the attendees.

Day of Giving was an event hosted by the university on April 5, the goal of the day was to receive donations from 1,899 participants. These donations could be designated for a specific purpose or be given to the university to use at their discretion. The university opened donations at 12:01 a.m. and closed them at 11:59 p.m.