"Everything Tiger Giving Day"

As assistant director of cAUse marketing with Auburn Advancement, Lisa Lofland knows one day can change everything.   

In 2015, she was part of a group charged with creating a day of giving for Auburn University. 

“Our team envisioned this grassroots platform,” remembered Lofland.  “We really wanted people to find their match and find the causes and projects they were passionate about.”  

From that idea grew Tiger Giving Day — a 24-hour online day of giving that shines a spotlight on the people and programs that make Auburn special. 

“Tiger Giving Day is very story-driven, very project-based and very individualized," Lofland said. 

Tiger Giving Day 2026 will be held on Wednesday, March 25.  There are 35 projects – one from every college – with fundraising goals between $5,000 to $30,000.   

Attention and funding are brought to projects that focus on innovation and the Auburn spirit, serving students and communities which are central to the university’s land grant mission.  

Donors can support projects ranging from the Campus Kitchen and Campus Career Closet, to creating a Community Makerspace, upgrading the Auburn University Raptor Center’s travel carriers, sending youth to 4-H summer camps and more.  

“This year, for the first time, we have all three ROTC branches that will have a presence on Tiger Giving Day,” added Lofland. 

Since 2015, more than 16,000 donors have given seven million-plus dollars to fuel over 400 life-changing projects. 

“It's about connection,” Lofland said. “We want to provide you with a philanthropic opportunity and connect you with like people who share the same passion.”  

Since 2017, Auburn’s Adaptive Athletics program has benefited from the generosity of supporters on Tiger Giving Day. 

Adapted Athletics, which began in 2009 with wheelchair tennis and one student-athlete, has quickly grown to include wheelchair basketball and power wheelchair soccer with about 25 student-athletes competing across those three sports.  

Tiger Giving Day donations have funded competition wheelchairs, scholarships, shot-tracking cameras, an adapted van and a recovery room.  

This year, in partnership with the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, Adapted Athletics is raising funds to build the next generation of power soccer wheelchairs through a collaborative, student-driven design initiative. 

“Getting these chairs created will allow our power soccer team to continue to compete at a high level and bring in recruits,” said Taylor. “We want to continue to play at a top level with basketball and tennis, too, and possibly add additional paralympic sports in the future.” 

For Lofland, Tiger Giving Day represents the unique spirit of the Auburn Family. 

“I always want Tiger Giving Day to be accessible to anyone at any giving level,” Lofland said. “It is an honor to steward that and continue to cultivate it.” 

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Transcript

0:05

Welcome into everything Auburn. Thank you for joining us on the podcast here at Auburn University. We get to speak to members of the Auburn family every single month. And happy March. Can't believe it's already March. But once again, I am Dalton and I have two special guests of the Auburn family here with me. I'm going to read their title so I don't get them wrong here. I have Lisa Lofland, the assistant director of cAUse Marketing with Auburn Advancement and Auburn University. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Got a big month for you with that Tiger giving day carry very big month. Yeah. What we will be discussing today as well as, self-proclaimed adaptive athletics athletic director coach Rob Taylor. Yes, sir. hey War Eagle. Thanks for having me. War Eagle indeed. We were just discussing before self title there of athletic director. And I'm very proud of you for coming up with this. Thank you. I mean, I oversee all of our adaptive sports. So we got basketball, tennis and power soccer. And so what do you got to direct them? So might as well be me. Absolutely, absolutely. Well, big reason we got both of you here today is Tiger Giving Day is coming up here at the end of the month, which is one of the coolest thing that Auburn does. Thank you. I really love it. I'm a storyteller at heart. Video guy I really love a good story, and I love the way Tiger Giving Day is very story based. Yes. Right. That being said, that's and what I mean by that is a lot of universities, a lot of college, a lot of companies say I need money to do the thing, please give me money, which is fair. We do need that. But the way Tiger Giving Day works is is so much different that it's we do need money to fund these things that we want to do. Here are the cool things we want to do. What speaks to your heart the most? Yes. Which is so cool. And there's some adaptive athletic stuff, which is some incredible things we're trying to do with Tiger Giving Day, which is one thing we'll be talking about. But if you could, let's start with Tiger Giving Day as a whole. He said, okay, walk me through how it works. What is it? Scope and scale. What should we expect? What makes it cool? How long you've been doing it? Give me the whole thing here. Okay. So Tiger, given Day started in 2015, and, we were charged with creating a day of giving for Auburn University. There was no, caveats around it or anything like that. So it was pretty wide open to be able to create whatever we wanted to with that day. So our the team at the time, we consulted this sort of grassroots platform that would, really give a voice, and a place for projects from around campus that the Auburn family might not know about. So we really wanted to, if you think of it in terms of matchmaking, we we we really wanted people to find their match, find, you know, find the causes, the projects that they were passionate about. And so we started it 2015. This past September, we celebrated our ten year anniversary with incredible. I can't believe it's already been going on for that long. I, I can't either. I still have the original email that I needed and another colleague to figure it out. So that frame that exactly. But it's been a really wonderful thing that's brought so much attention and funding to some pretty awesome stuff here on campus. Yes it has. So it is, officially a 24 hour online day of giving. And we have this year we have 35 projects. And we purposely keep their goals between 5000 and $30,000. When we look at projects, we get a lot of applications. We look at projects, we try to determine, is this something that we could pull off in one day? And also, you know, a lot of people are looking at the projects on their phone, probably half of our donors, you know, who end up donating or doing it via mobile devices. So 2026. Yes. The world we sell. One criteria when we're looking at the projects is can this make sense in a sentence. Absolutely. Can I pitch it in a sentence. And helping people, you know, find their mouths. Yeah. It's, it's a really cool thing and I've been a part of several every year Tiger giving it comes around and people come to our department asking help us make a video to kind of pitch it and sell it. And we make it. We make several a year. But every project has a little a snippet, a little elevator pitch with it, to tell it, which is a wonderful segue. Look at me, podcast host coach Rob, athletic director extraordinaire. This is great. This is great. Yeah, yeah. It's good, it's good. Adaptive athletics has some tag date. Projects are coming up as well. I know wheelchair basketball is one that personally has a lot, but they're really hoping to get out. Tiger, you may walk us through that. We'll get through the history of wheelchair and adaptive athletics here at Auburn in a moment. But while we're on Tiger Giving Day what is the adaptive Athletics Tiger Giving Day project. So you got going on this. Yeah we're we're really excited this year. We're we're actually pivoting away from basketball for Tiger giving to this year. And we're pivoting towards our power soccer team. So two years ago we started a power soccer or power wheelchair soccer team. Last year they won a national championship and in their division, which was awesome for Eagle. But what we found is that the power chairs that our student athletes use, there's only one company that makes them. And is it really? Auburn believes that we can make a better chair. Our head coach of the power soccer team also plays on the US power soccer team, and he's had dreams and aspirations of creating his own chair. So, last year he started working with engineering. So we're excited this year for Tiger Giving Day to really get embedded with all aspects of engineering and create a brand new Auburn only power chair that we can then kind of roll out and hopefully continue to dominate tournaments with. So, they've done some great jobs and some of the prototypes, but the money that we're raising this year is to go create brand new chairs that we can outfit all of our student athletes in one. That's that's incredible. Honestly. I mean, you take it to the Auburn engineers, smart, smart people. Those are some of the smartest people I've ever talked to, to the point where I've had to tell them, you guys are way too smart for me, but I'm glad you're on our side. There is, a many times Kim, our producer over here, has heard me say it more times. I'm sure she can count is we go do video shoots or with this group or what have you. And I walk in that tell us what we're doing is like, okay, that's wonderful. I have a film degree. I need you to like a seven year old verbal language here. So let's back up a little bit while we're kind of talking about we have the athletic director here of adaptive athletics. Yeah. Let's see any question you have. Let's talk about it. Walk me through it here. So walk me through adaptive athletics here at Auburn just from the genesis I know I believe it started with tennis if I'm not mistaken. It did. And kind of what was your involvement in kind of how do we get to where we are today? Yes, we've had an adaptive sports program for 16 years in our campus. We started in 2010. We had one student athlete, and you can have a tennis team with one guy. You can't have a basketball team. It's a bit tricky, a little, a little short. Yeah, yeah. So we started with wheelchair tennis, and then we, brought in additional athletes. And they wanted to play basketball more than want to play tennis. So tennis faded away for a number of years. But we brought tennis back about eight years ago. So we had wheelchair basketball. We have wheelchair tennis. And then, as I mentioned, two years ago, we started power wheelchair soccer. So, we've got athletes that compete in all three of those sports. We've had great success in all of those sports. Again, Power soccer won a national championship last year in their division. And just like able bodied soccer in Europe, they got promoted to the top level of power soccer. Now, and I will say we are the first and the only university in the country to offer collegiate power soccer. So they're playing against adult and club teams from all over the country. Incredible. Our tennis team has been national runners up to the last three years. We've had three of our athletes finished the national runners up within their, their level of play. And I guess, from a basketball standpoint, this is where we've fallen short, okay? We've actually lost in the Elite eight the last three years, so. Oh, you know, the other two programs are doing great. I'm slacking from a basketball standpoint, but we have we have an incredible team this year. We're ranked third in the nation. We're 23 and seven right now. We have national championship expectations just like everybody does for all of our sports. So, but yeah, we started 16 years ago and we've grown into three sports now, and we've got about 25 student athletes across those three sports. Wonderful. And I, I can't help but brag for a moment if I, if I can if I was hoping, you know, I'm just going to give you a little bit of a break here. Please do, not only all the incredible national champions and all these incredible things we've done here, you're also, three time Olympic gold medalists. If, if our research team. If I can correct you, please. It's four times. Oh. Oh. Sorry for its apologies. Apology? No problem. Four time Olympic gold medalists as well. Yes. You know, just coming off the Winter Olympics can't help but sit there and watch these athletes go. Man, what am I doing my life, you know, walk me through that experience as well, if you don't mind. Yes. So I was, an assistant coach with the US women in 2008 was my first Paralympic game that I went to. We want a gold medal in in Beijing with the women's team. And then, I got hired to be the assistant coach with the US men, so started with the men in 2013. Went to Rio in 2016, won a gold medal there, which was the first time the US men had won a gold medal in 28 years. We followed that up with another gold medal in Tokyo in 2020 or the delayed 2021 games. Oh, yeah. At that point, I convinced the head coach to retire. I mean, he was ready for it. Good. Good guy. And I got promoted to head coach at that point. So I took over the team in 2021, and, we went on a great run in that quad. We won a gold medal every single major tournament that we went to, including world championships, which we hadn't won a gold medal there in 20 years, and then capped it off with the gold medal in Paris, which was the first time that any men's wheelchair basketball team had won three consecutive gold medals. Each game was, incredible. Each one of them was different going from Tokyo, where there were no fans there to Paris, where you had to sell out every single game. It was it was night and day different. And, but each medal is a whole is a very special part of my heart. Yeah. And I say this to a lot of people when I go to speaking engagements, if you ever have the opportunity to win a gold medal, just win it. It's the best feeling in the world. Aside from getting married and having kids, it is incredible. So when you get that opportunity, don't pass it up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'm still looking for you for for the event. For me. Not really sure what that will be. But but when it shows up, I will make sure I win. Yes. For sure, I got you covered. Yeah. And might be in, like, you know, eating contest is more my style. It's gotta be ready when the moment comes. I'm not a hot dog eating contest guy, but surely there's something out there for me. I'm sure there's a creative director gold medal you can win. All right. Yeah, I don't know. You know, you talking my language there? All right. All right, Lisa, I got some tough questions for you. Okay. We go. Here we go. Okay. Let's see. So one of my favorite things I get to do on this podcast is I get to talk to some incredible people, right? And hear their stories. I'm I told you guys before we start or I said it all here. I'm a storyteller. That's what I do. I love to hear what makes people tick, why they do what they do. And Targeting Day is a story driven thing. It very much is. So put you on the spot here. Okay? Oh, boy. You've been. You've been associated with Tiger. Me Day since the beginning. Yes. You are clearly passionate about it. Yes, I am, I, I you know, I don't want to put that on you. Right. But I feel it would be an accurate. I can feel it come in this direction. Right. You know went through coach Rob background here. I'd love to know kind of your background, your love and passion for Tiger giving day. Cause marketing which is your entire life right here. Yeah. Shop. And, walk me through what that looks like at Auburn. Obviously, Tiger Gaming Day is the most public probably endeavor, right? But it's a three, six five job. Yes. Yeah. What does that look like from you? Okay. I'm married into all of this. Not a sports person at all. My husband found me up in Nashville. He was an Auburn alumnus. And, his family, he and his family are from Opelika. So, I moved down here, fell in love with the area. Didn't even graduate from an SEC school. So I went to Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas. And, so 2014, I got hired to be part of the billion dollar campaign at the time. I say the kickoff team for that. And then the next year we decided to do a day of giving, for Auburn University. And Tiger gave me just kind of draws you in because it it is this, I've always been very proud of the fact that we have held to this model that's very different than other universities. Not so much, where, you know, we have this great platform to tell these stories. And we hear back from donors every year I do a Durham donor survey. Last year we had more than 500 donors compete. Complete it, for Tiger Giving Day, where they tell us why they give And one of the things I love about it is we hear from families where everyone in the family, gets a certain amount of money and they pick their projects, and it's like a day of philanthropy with their kids. For how that goes. We have others where, they say, hey, I'm on a fixed income, but I know that my 30 bucks like, it moves a little needle, you know, on that bar. People are really into those bars. That's thermometers and the donor maps as well. But, you know, so that, you know, that gives you a lot of purpose. But then also hearing back from our projects, the things that we I think maybe 2017 was when we started adaptive athletics on Tiger Giving Day. And I didn't even know that was something Auburn University had. So to be able to give that program a voice is huge. You know, I find every year I love looking through the whole list. Yes, because, you know, you scroll page and page, there's so much there. And inevitably every year there's somewhere between 20 and 35 ish 40 projects. You know, a year. It kind of varies, right? There's always a handful. That's like, I didn't even know we had that. Yes. Every single year it happens. Yes. Same here. It's like I think there you go. I never knew I didn't know we had a B lab. Oh yeah. I didn't know we had an autism clinic. I didn't know the career closet existed for our students or an eating disorders clinic. There's so many incredible resources here on campus. Is something we talk about on this podcast a lot. Actually, we had, last month, we had, alumni on, on the podcast who was a big part of creating his business here and use the new venture accelerator, which is one like, yeah, more students need to know that exist, right? Yeah. Tiger Giving Day is a really great avenue for learning about some of those really great resources that you just didn't know about. Yeah, find some interest and then find some passionate people. I passionate people are infectious to me. I think they are. And we rely on them quite a bit. But you know, I will have projects. There was one year where the autism clinic, the very next day, the professor told us, I think I was in a hallway conversation that, literally she saw the numbers, you know, from the day before and was able to call a family and say, we can get you the early intervention care that your child needs because that funding is now there. And so, I mean, if that doesn't get you up to go to work in the morning and I'm really trying, you're really trying to make me cry on this podcast. Yeah. Well, it's happened before and you guys are really fighting it here. Yeah. It's it's something that comes up on here all the time. As well as Auburn family, the Creed Auburn showing up to help Auburn, which is so incredible. I think what's so is so great is these families do it. You get like, you know, a little bit of an allowance, you're going to pick one you're passionate about. And that's what. So if people are funding their passions. Right. I have a passion for athletics. I'm a fine athletic. I don't like sport. I have a passion for art and find something that's art driven. Right. If I can get you, I'm going to ask you both this so you can both, you know, mentally prepare for it. This is the crystal ball question, okay? Right. So crystal ball, what does the kind of the future and growth of cause marketing tire giving day. You know what to 16 years. This will be our own event. 11 years. 11 okay. 16, 16 years for it. That's what that numbers. Yeah. So 11 years of tired giving day calls. Mark, what is the crystal ball next? Three, five, ten years next 11 years look like as it kind of grows and evolves, right. Tricky question. I know it is a tricky question. I think that every year we learn something new. And the Auburn family will let us know what they think about it. I foresee I always want Tiger giving day to be a day that is accessible to anyone at any giving level, and I always want to make sure. I mean, as long as I'm in the saddle that, you can find what you're interested in, you know, with it. So I think that it is an honor to steward that and continue to cultivate it. You know, there may be other opportunities in the future as well for a similar type platform, you know, maybe more focus, you know, in on different things, but and cost marketing, you know, we're really our goal is to make sure that wherever you are in your life right now as a member of the Auburn family, that you know what is out there available, you know, if you're interested in it, we can find it for you. So we either want to engage you where you are or provides you with a philanthropic opportunity, where you are and connect you with the people that are doing it. Which again, is one of my favorite parts. It's not the advancement is a kind of a glue connection between the people that want to help do something and the people who are doing the work. And it's a really great way of connection. Again, when I first learned that that's the way we kind of do giving and fundraising here at Auburn, it was. So I don't know. It's not the way I imagined it works in my head. I don't know where the idea came from, but it's just when I learned that it was very personable, very story driven, very project based, very individual. This is the person doing the thing that you're passionate about, based. It was like it felt right. Yeah. I had no idea this was even a job. So yeah, yeah, yeah. It's incredible. Yeah. That's wonderful. And then coach, if I could time for crystal ball. Question. What does the future I know we talked about you have a two year giving a project as well. What does the future entail for you guys? I mean for Tiger Giving Day in the short term it's it's getting these chairs created and allowing our power soccer team to continue to compete at a high level and allow us to bring in recruits and then maybe eventually turn the Auburn Power chair into the worldwide chair that everyone wants to play and sign me up. That that's kind of our plan for basketball with all of our other sports. We, we want to continue to play at a top level with basketball, with tennis, possibly adding some other Paralympic sports in the future if, if it makes sense for us, and then really, our short term and even long term goal right now is to try to figure out what happens with, with our program when the Coliseum comes down. So we're we're housed in the historic. Oh, yeah, historic buildings, Memorial Coliseum camera nowhere, man. Right there. But, but we know that that building is not going to stay. Or for sure. Every Coliseum has to crumble. Even. No one in Rome. So there has to be a new home for Auburn adapted athletics. And, whether that is a Tiger giving Day project, which might be outside of the scope of 5 to 30,000 to grab. Yeah, you may have some other ideas, but there we go. I like it, heard it here first, but it is trying to figure out what what's the long term home for Auburn adapted athletics. And then what can we do to better support our student athletes? Both in the classroom, on the court and even off the court. That's always kind of been our goal. Absolutely. Two thoughts. First, a very, you know, low level thing here. I just want to say every time you say Power Soccer, that might be the single coolest name for any sport I've ever heard in my life. Just want to throw that out there. Whoever. Like, that's the name. Coolest thing ever. Yeah, just throw that out there for sure. And second off, I think Auburn adaptive athletics is one of the cooler things that I'm really proud of that Auburn because it's one of those it'd be it'd be sad and I think I think you learned that we had it through Tiger give media if I'm not mistaken. Right. It's the thing that I want more people to know about because it's so cool and I'm so proud that we do it and we do it so well. And it's such a level. It's really it's really incredible. And and to see it even grow outside of where it's at now would be so cool. And also Power soccer. So cool. Just absolutely incredible. Well, I think this is a really great chance. You know, this is this is the the shameless plug, moment of your podcast right here. So, where to learn about Tiger Giving Day. How do we find it? Where to find it? What do I do? I want to participate. I want to donate. I want to learn more. Where do I go? How do I do that? Absolutely. So Tiger giving dawg can do write it down. March 25th. And you can see all 35 projects there. We have one from every college on campus, including most of our units, Student Affairs, jetpack, the Jewel, outreach, Athletics, several from the Provost office as well. Like, the career closet. This year, notably, for the first time, we've got all three ROTC branches. We'll have a presence on Tiger giving it awesome. So Army air Force and, Naval and Marine Corps, ROTC projects as well. So that's it, Tiger giving, dawg, if you remember nothing else from the podcast TigerGiving.org. And it's a great resource and it's a really great thing. It happens every year will be. Yes, every spring. I'll come up beginning of the year. Yes. Trying to get in before Tax Day, you know. Absolutely right. Yeah I know it's a sweet spot but it's been holiday giving. Yeah. No I get it I get it. No it is helpful. It is really great. And it's so it's something you look out for every year. Yes. Always you know 30 some odd or so projects which is really incredible. And then coach want to learn more but adaptive athletics or specific sport want to learn more. Where do I go? Want to go to a game? Watch an event? Where do I go to learn? Yeah. Well first off TigerGiving.org, that's the one they were supposed to do what they need to remember. That's what we're remember. Take nothing away from this podcast TigerGiving.org. That's where my buddy all of our stuff is was listed on our social media. Auburn adapted with with Instagram. We've got a website Auburn adaptive.com. But everything's listed on there. All of our games for all of our sports are free of charge. Power soccer and basketball play over at the Coliseum. So it is it is still being used despite what people might think. Our basketball season is is wrapping up, this month, our power soccer season. We don't have any more, no more home games this year. But in the future, come. Please come to the basketball game if you're around this weekend. I know people watching won't be able to see it, but, this weekend we have games if you guys want to come out to some games. But, yeah. Wonderful. Well, I wanna say thank you both so much for what you do for spending some time just hanging out with me on the podcast, learning more about what you guys do and what makes you guys tick. I appreciate it. And and good luck. You know, always coming up here soon and excited to see what happens. Well, thank you, Carter. Thanks for having us. Where are you going? Tiger giving day has been a blessing to us for the last seven years. We're very fortunate that we have, we've hit our goal every year. And I think, the success rate for all of our, Tiger giving day projects over the last 11 years is really, really high. So a thank you to the Auburn family as well for all their love and support, not just of adaptive athletics, but for Tiger giving that period. Yeah. As a several several I mean hundreds of projects have been funded over the years. It is 400 plus project. I did want to put you on the spot, but I was I was very glad for 400 plus project for that number. As of September, with over more than 16,000 donors over 11 years. That's incredible. So yeah, there you go, Tiger. Giving day, dawg. That's where remembering and every dollar counts. You know, it all works. Well, I appreciate you guys for coming and listening as well. Thanks for spend some time with us. And we're excited to see, what comes next. We'll be back again next month with more members of our family. Learn about them and what makes them tick as well. Excited to see you then. And until next time War Eagle! War Eagle! War Eagle!