DontGivetoUVA.com stopped accepting donations in late April and collected little money during its existence, despite receiving significant attention when it launched in February.
The Web site, founded by two gay University alumni, asked potential donors to abstain from giving to the University and donate to the Web site instead as a protest against the University not providing benefits to its employees' same-sex partners. It pledged to use the funds to support the partners and to raise awareness about the issue.
Although its creators, 2003 College graduates Andrew Borchini and Andrew Bond, had hoped to raise $100,000 this year, Borchini said the site had raised much less by the time it stopped actively soliciting donations in late April. At press time, Borchini was unable to provide The Cavalier Daily with the total amount of donations raised by the site.
"$100,000 is a lot of money," he said. "In terms of money, we didn't raise much. It wasn't much compared to what the [initial] goal was."
Borchini said he and Bond decided to stop accepting donations in the spring because they felt University administrators had become more responsive to the benefits issue.
"I believe that even the highest ranking of the highest ranking U.Va. officials want this policy changed," he said.
A divisive form of protest since its inception, DontGivetoUVA.com irked some gay rights activists at the University who felt its strong-arm method of trying to deny the University fundraising dollars may have only alienated administrators.
Claire Kaplan, sexual assault education coordinator for the University women's center and a member of U.Va. Pride, the University's largest staff gay rights organization, offered a critical assessment of the site's effectiveness.
"I think there are personal agendas tied up with it more than [Borchini and Bond] realize," she said. "I think they mean well, but it's backfiring on us."
According to Kaplan, some alumni donated money to the University in attempts to spite Borchini and Bond's efforts.
"There are people who have given money to U.Va. saying, 'I'm glad you don't have domestic partner benefits,'" she said.
Borchini said that for him the site was always about more than dollars and cents.
"Collecting money was never the number one priority for us," he said. "The number one priority was bringing attention to this issue."
Kaplan agreed that the attention brought to the domestic partner benefits debate may be a sort of silver lining to the site's existence.
"The good that it did was to raise students' consciousness," she said.
University Spokesperson Carol Wood said the University is aware of the importance many faculty, staff and students attach to this issue.
"Certainly this is an issue that has a lot of support in the University community and it is one that we know affects members of our community," Wood said. "I think we will all continue to work within the system to see that progress is made."
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