Student organizations kick off social media challenge to benefit scholarships

Inspired by the The Bucky Challenge, the University of Wisconsin Student Foundation and the Wisconsin Alumni Student Board are raising money for the Great People Scholarship through social media.

In the Badgers Backing Badgers Challenge, an anonymous donor is contributing $1, up to a total of $2,500, for each Facebook “like” and Twitter “follow” from a UW–Madison student for the two groups through Saturday, Dec. 17, the final day of classes for the fall semester.

The social media venues for the UW Student Foundation are facebook.com/UWStudentFoundation and @StudentsForUW on Twitter and for the Wisconsin Alumni Student Board, facebook.com/GOWASB and @W_A_S_B on Twitter.

The effort mirrors The Bucky Challenge earlier this fall, in which the UW–Madison and the Wisconsin Alumni Association made close to 20,000 new social media connections through a challenge from Will and Jenny Hsu of Minneapolis and Will’s parents, Paul and Sharon Hsu of Wausau, Wis. The Hsus pledged to give $1 for every new Facebook and Twitter follower to UW–Madison and WAA.

As a direct result of alumni and student involvement in The Bucky Challenge, the Hsus donated $19,432 to the Great People Scholarship in the first effort to raise need-based scholarship funds in this way in higher education.

On its website, the Student Foundation explains how its members and those of WASB were inspired by The Bucky Challenge. “We thought it would be great if the message came from students this time,” the Student Foundation says, “so we’re teaming up to show how students can make a difference.”