The FEARLESS: Women of Oregon State Athletics fundraising campaign launched in May 2023 inspired by the 50th anniversary of Title IX.
Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender in educational institutions receiving federal funding. The FEARLESS goal is to elevate women’s sports at Oregon State.
FEARLESS was unveiled in accordance with the SEE IT BEav IT initiative on May 9 2023. SEE IT BEav IT focuses on celebrating women’s athletics stories at Oregon State University, while FEARLESS honors all past, present and future OSU female student-athletes.
Coming up to their first anniversary the FEARLESS campaign is developing more programs to help women athletes at OSU connect to a wider community.
The most recent FEARLESS facility project was remodeling the volleyball locker rooms, but FEARLESS is across all nine women’s sports, which includes volleyball, rowing, track and field, cross country, golf, soccer, basketball, softball and gymnastics.
According to Lyndie Mendoza, associate director of development and athletics at the OSU Foundation, next year the goal for FEARLESS is to start investing in professional development for student athletes with things like networking nights and the ability to go to conferences.
According to Mendoza, FEARLESS started out with the FEARLESS Circle program, which accepted major gifts ranging from $50,000 to $100,000, with $100,000 donations being called the “Pioneer Level.” These donations are payable over five years.
Part of the FEARLESS Circle program is a mentorship program. According to Mendoza, the program started this year with sophomores, so the sophomores have the ability to get to know the FEARLESS pioneers over the next couple of years.
“By the time that these sophomores are set to graduate, they’ll have these connections, they’ll be able to reach out to these other philanthropic women for advice or connections,” Mendoza said.
According to OSU’s 2023 revenue report to the National Collegiate Athletics Association, OSU had 251 male NCAA athletes, 213 of whom were on some portion of scholarship. Women had 214 athletes, 184 with scholarships.
“Funding is important because it provides amazing opportunities to female athletes,” said Zoe Bishop, a fourth-year women’s rower.
“This last October we launched the annual giving side, which means if you have a dollar and you want to give it to FEARLESS, it will all go into this FEARLESS fund. We look at it as a forever fund, so a fund that we are going to hopefully keep growing in perpetuity,” Mendoza said. “Later down the line, we would love to be able to endow coaching positions in the different female sports.”
Jackie Bruns, the senior women’s sports administrator, is in charge of the FEARLESS budget. Each year, when the head coaches of the women’s sports receive their annual plan, Bruns is able to allot some of the FEARLESS budget to support each team in what they need.
The current FEARLESS fund is not endowed so all money is current use. Mendoza hopes that over the next few years, they will be able to endow the fund so that Fearless can continue to grow.
