The University’s first-ever fundraising contest through social media drew in 2,600 voting participants in its first 48 hours, but less than a quarter of those shelled out cash.

The High Five Challenge, which pitted dozens of University groups and departments against each other to collect votes online, pulled in $35,000 from about 600 donors, nearly doubling the amount of funds initially pledged by trustee Steve Ross. The University’s need-based aid program, the Power and Promise Fund, earned the most donations, followed by GW’s libraries and career services.

The University’s chief fundraiser Mike Morsberger has said he hoped the campaign would help expand the University’s donor base, especially among its alumni, who donate at a rate that is historically behind GW’s peer schools. About 65 percent of donations in the challenge came from alumni, 20 percent from faculty and 15 percent from current students.

About one-third of those who gave were first-time donors — a small step off the ground as the development office searches for new ways to engage alumni online.

The web-based campaign has been in the works for years as the development office invests heavily in technology and staff under Morsberger’s direction.

The office has rolled out new systems and programs, overhauling how the University targets alumni donors with an online tracking system. It has begun allowing development office staffers to recommend donation options to alumni based on their alumni event attendance, donation history and student organization affiliation.

Morsberger, GW’s vice president of development and alumni relations, said the office has been “playing catch-up” since he took the helm in 2010.

The office has grown from a near-afterthought to an army of staffers taking on bigger and loftier fundraising goals, with technology upgrades as the final step towards strengthening the department.

“Our aspirations were different then, and we are moving into the 21st century rapidly, and it seems to be working,” Morsberger said.

Administrators have said the University will likely launch a comprehensive campaign – expected to raise at least $400 million – sometime this year, though the exact size and start date are still under wraps. Morsberger said the campaign will be key in implementing the costly yet transformative plans for the next decade, approved by the Board of Trustees on Friday.

The University’s fundraising office rakes in about $120 million each year, which is divvied up among GW’s schools, financial aid and projects like the Science and Engineering Hall. But while the total has increased for the past five years, the growth rate has slowed considerably.

As the office plans for the biggest fundraising campaign it has ever taken on, the key could be in online competitions, which see high participation rates and also make donors more likely to give again, Morsberger said.

He also said it’s not the size of the gifts through the internet, which tend to be “very small,” that matter, but that alumni are more likely to continue donating once they have already done so.

“Very few students I know could write a $20,000 check. But by marshalling lots of students to vote, they might just get a $20,000 check from Steve Ross,” Morsberger said. “Participation and engagement is everything to us right now.”

The office has complemented its new focus on technology-based development with an emphasis on personal connections, said Morsberger, who keeps a pile of years-old thank you notes in his desk drawer. Making sure donors see personally where their money is going is a fundamental part of fundraising that Morsberger said GW has been able to retain, despite the new focus on online fundraising.

To help donors see the impact of their dollars, the Office of Alumni Relations last month enticed students with free Georgetown Cupcakes if they wrote personalized thank you cards to a donor that explained what they love about their GW experience that was made possible by their gifts.

“It’s high tech, high touch. This is still about relationships. Anything we pull off via High Five or the internet is just a gateway to a relationship. We want to meet you. We want to get to know you. We want to work with you,” Morsberger said.

-Sarah Ferris contributed to this report.