Outdoor Action has raised more than $40,000 over the last seven months, largely due to its Writathon campaign in December. This amount almost doubles the $25,000 that the program typically raises each year, Outdoor Action (OA) program director Rick Curtis '79 said.
Curtis and OA student leaders still worry, however, that the donations — while increasing each year — are not enough to relieve the financial burden some students face when participating in the pre-orientation trip or to continue offering training courses and other academic-year activities.
Spokeswoman for the Office of Development Wendell Collins said that OA has been identified as a future fundraising priority under the category of campus life. Financial relief should come to the program in three to five years, when the University will create a permanent endowment fund.
"The areas they are going to be focused on are scholarships [and] expanding the leader training programs, which is important due to the University's plan to increase the class size by 11 percent," she said.
Since an endowment takes time to raise, it will not begin to help the program for several years, Curtis added.
OA's annual budget is roughly $350,000, which covers salaries, leader training costs and all trips and activities, including the OA climbing wall and its staff. Seventy percent of the money is funded through student fees — which come from freshmen, leaders and leader trainees — while 24 percent comes from University support, including financial aid for the freshman trips. Alumni donations, mostly solicited through the Writathon, comprise the remaining six percent.
Around half of the budget is spent on the freshman pre-orientation trips. Last year, students paid about $430 to participate unless they qualified for financial aid.
"There's always concern that the amount we're charging is actually a disincentive," Curtis said.
Training costs can also be high for OA leaders, with current fees for new trainees totaling $261 this year, including first aid certification and a program-subsidized leader training trip. Advanced wilderness medical certifications, required for OA's first-aid instructors, can also cost hundreds of dollars.
While some recent participants in the OA program found the price to be reasonable, others complained about both the cost of the trip and the amount of financial aid provided to qualifying participants.
"I think financial aid was great, but I [still] felt it was a little too expensive," Katie Hsih '10 said of the trip. She added that the amount of financial assistance offered to qualifying students was not as generous as Princeton's other financial aid offerings.
Katie Rodriguez '10 agreed. "I think Princeton should have completely covered it," she said. "It's one of those things that they portray as integral to the experience when they send you the [acceptance] package."
Despite the possible financial strain, both Hsih and Rodriguez said that they would recommend the program to the next class of freshmen. "It was nice to have a group of seven or eight people that you knew when orientation started," said Hsih. "You didn't feel as foreign."
One of the ways OA attempts to offset the financial burden students can incur is through its annual Writathon campaign. Current student leaders gathered in Jadwin and Frist over a few nights to write notes to possible donors, explaining how the program has affected their Princeton experiences.
Writathon participant and OA leader Lauren Tracey '08 said the event was OA's most important fundraising tool. "It's really our only big push of the year for fundraising, and it's been getting better and better each year," she said.
Fellow OA leader Caroline Chopko '07 spoke of the pressures of participating in the Writathon. "Your little notes are dictating what OA can do for next year," she said. "It [the Writathon] is what sustains OA at this point. I wish there was more permanent funding, but I guess that's coming."
Chopko said the program is so important that she has participated in the Writathon for several years.
"[OA] does a great job of establishing a lot of the things that freshman orientation tries to do, just on a more personal and real level," she said.
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