Fundraising Facts

In 1987, an 18-year-old freshman named Mike Hayes funded his education by asking 2.8 million people for one penny.

Evanston Township High School in Illinois played Justin Bieber's 'Baby' as a fundraiser between classes. Students had to pay to stop it. $1,000 was collected in 3 days.

More than 17 million people worldwide dumped ice water on their own heads in 2014, and the Ice Bucket Challenge helped pay for Project MinE, a global hunt for ALS genes. In 2016 its team of more than 80 scientists in 11 countries found NEK1, a gene whose variants turn up in nearly 3 percent of ALS cases in North America and Europe.

The Hollywood Sign was falling apart by 1978. One letter had crashed down the hillside and it read "HuLLYWO D." Hugh Hefner held a Playboy Mansion fundraiser. Nine donors each paid $27,700 for a letter. Alice Cooper claimed an O in honor of Groucho Marx. Gene Autry took an L. Andy Williams funded the W. That rebuilt sign is the one you see today.

The Statue of Liberty once had no body. For six years, just her arm and torch stood in Madison Square Park. France paid for the statue - Americans had to fund the pedestal. Visitors paid 50 cents to climb inside the arm. Wealthy New Yorkers living right beside it refused to donate. Pulitzer shamed them publicly, and the full statue arrived in 214 crates.