Six Dollars and Fifty Cents a Month: MTSU Sets the Highest Charitable Giving Goal in Its History
Every fall, Middle Tennessee State University asks the people who run it to look outward. This year the ask is bigger than it has ever been: the 2026-27 Employee Charitable Giving Campaign opened Oct. 1 with a record goal of $170,000, and it runs through Nov. 15.
The number is a deliberate stretch. Last year the university's employees pledged $165,069, edging past a $165,000 goal by just $69, with more than 660 people taking part. The target has climbed in steady steps, from $160,000 in 2024 to $165,000 in 2025 and now $170,000. University President Sidney A. McPhee set the new mark and challenged the campus to meet it.
The math behind the goal
What makes the figure feel reachable is how small the individual pieces are. With roughly 2,200 employees on the payroll, hitting $170,000 works out to an average of about $78 a year per person, or $6.50 a month. Employees can give once or set up a recurring payroll deduction through the university's online giving form, so a gift can be as quiet as a line on a paycheck stub.
The campaign also starts with a head start. A “pacesetters” phase ahead of the official kickoff has already gathered $56,300 in pledges, roughly a third of the way to the goal before the public push began.
Where the money goes
Gifts support area nonprofits, including Community Shares, Creating Healthier Communities and the local United Ways. Together those organizations touch some of the most basic needs in the region: home health care, child care, literacy and nutrition. Because the money comes from people who live and work in Rutherford County and the neighboring communities, a good share of it comes back to neighbors, classmates and coworkers.
If you want a sense of how long this tradition has run and how much it has grown, look at our earlier report on an MTSU drive that pledged almost $145,000. The yearly total has climbed by more than $20,000 since then.
A little friendly rivalry
Giving drives work better when they are not solemn all the time, and MTSU leans into that. Weekly drawings award prizes that range from coveted campus parking spaces to MTSU-branded merchandise. Provost Mark Byrnes oversees the effort, and academic units compete for the Provost Cup. Joyce Heames, dean of the Jennings A. Jones College of Business, leads the competing units, and her college has taken the cup for more than a decade, a streak the other colleges would surely love to end.
For a university with a long record of community partnerships, this is the quiet, payroll-deduction side of that mission. It does not make headlines the way a football Saturday does, but it adds up to something concrete: a six-figure check, spread across hundreds of small decisions, headed to organizations that help families across Middle Tennessee.
Anyone looking for more ways to help closer to home can browse our Murfreesboro nonprofit coverage for causes that welcome volunteers and donors all year.
