16
Telethon & Key Fund
This year’s telethon campaign raised over £97,000* for projects that benefit our
current and future students.
F
or three weeks during November
a group of our current students,
some of whom are shown above,
rang 966 alumni to talk about what’s
been going on at Keele over the past
year, to find out what they have gone
on to do after leaving university and
to ask whether they would be keen to
support Keele financially with a small
monthly donation.
Many fascinating conversations were
had, and lots of the student callers said
how inspiring and interesting they had
found the alumni to be, giving them
plenty of food for thought as to what
to do with the next chapters of their
lives. Equally, many alumni expressed
enjoyment at being able to connect
with a current student, finding out what
had been going on at Keele and what
things had changed since their time
as a student, over what aspects and
traditions had remained.
We were overwhelmed with the
response from so many Keelites, who
were not only generous with their time
and willingness to talk to our current
students about their experiences, but
also were keen to donate to the future
success of Keele.
Small one-off and regular gifts may
not seem, in isolation, to be able to
make an impact and difference to
the University and its students, but
collectively our regular supporters are
the backbone of our everyday funding
and make a huge difference. It means
we can support projects and bursaries
for our current student population,
which may not have gained funding in
any other way, and in addition, it allows
us to plan for the future, knowing that
this support is on-going and growing
year-on-year.
We would like to take this opportunity
to thank all those alumni who took
part in this year’s telethon, for your
generosity of time and financial
support.
The Keele Key Fund supports projects that benefit our current and future
students.
The last edition of ‘Forever Keele’
highlighted the amount of money
raised to date for the Key Fund, which
had been used on a myriad different
student and staff-led projects.
However, did you know that this is a
bi-annual process, when applicants
have the opportunity to apply in
November and February for funding
of up to £10,000 to a pot of money
assigned every year, much of it from
donations? The applications have to be
thorough, fully-costed and researched,
demonstrating that they have applied
for other sources of funding or have
elements of self-funding, that their
projects are sustainable and that they
will have a positive and inclusive effect
on the university community.
All these applications then go to a
disbursement committee, made up of
representatives across the University,
and chaired by a Pro Vice Chancellor,
to be individually scrutinised before
being accepted or rejected. Those
that are rejected are encouraged to
gain constructive feedback as to why
their application wasn’t accepted, in
the hope that they reapply in the next
round.
This November saw just under 60% of
applications being accepted with three
others encouraged to apply to the next
round, with some amendments and
*in both confirmed and pledged donations