Meet Chris Mulhall
Position: HuskyTHON Co-Director of Donation Management
Organizations that you belong to/leadership positions that you hold:
Brother of Beta Theta Pi
President of UConn Triathlon Club
Member of RunUC
What is your favorite HuskyTHON memory?
It’s hard to say one in particular, but I’d say walking into my first HuskyTHON ever as a freshman in 2013. I had no idea what to expect, and the Morale tunnel when I walked in was overwhelming at first, but in a good way, because I quickly realized what an incredible event this was.
What does your job entail as Co-Director of Donation Management?
As the name implies, we handle a lot of money. Any time someone has cash or check donations, we (myself, my co-director Ryan Profetto, and Jess Solotruk, the VP of Fundraising) record and deposit them. Each week we hold office hours in the Student Organization Center (SOC) so that people can bring in any offline doations they have. We also typically handle the cash box at any events we host, and have administrator access to Donor Drive, our online fundraising website, so that we can help people if they have any issues with their pages (need to be switched to a different type, want to be a dancer instead of a volunteer, etc).
Chris is a junior PNB major on campus. Here he poses with fellow Management Team members.
How did you get this position?
Applications for the entire management team went out a few weeks after HuskyTHON last year. I applied for the donation management position, was interviewed, and ultimately selected to hold the position for HuskyTHON 2015.
What inspired you to apply for this position?
I knew I definitely wanted to apply for the Management Team for HuskyTHON 2015. I’ve had experience as the treasurer of different organizations in the past, so when I read through all the positions, I felt that this one best fit my skill set and experiences.
How does your role fit in with the other roles for HuskyTHON?
Collaboration is a huge part of HuskyTHON. An example would be with our recent 24-hour fundraising effort, dubbed 24-25-26. Two members of the Management Team planned the overall event, while the communications team promoted it, the recruitment team reached out to individuals, the operations team planned events like our Late Night, and the fundraising team spent a lot of the day in the SOC collecting cash and check donations. Basically, there are never two situations that are exactly the same, but we’ll answer money-related questions related to an event or idea just like the communications team would answer publicity-related questions or the Community Relations team would answer questions about patient families at the hospital. Additionally, even though we all have responsibilities with our positions, we share the responsibility of coming up with new ideas and bouncing them off each other at weekly meetings.
Chris is dancing FTK on March 7th. Will you be dancing with him?
What is the most rewarding part of HuskyTHON for you?
Seeing such a huge number of students (over 2,000) representing a number of different areas and organizations on campus (academic clubs, friend groups, Greek life, residence halls, etc) come together to support the same cause, and knowing that our collective efforts are part of what allow the hospital to operate every year.
How do you juggle running a yearlong fundraiser with your classwork and other responsibilities?
The key is organization. You have to set aside time to answer e-mails and do other HuskyTHON-related things, but keep that time separate from your time for classwork and other outside activities, like the Triathlon Club, in my case. With that said, it’s important to be realistic about how much time something will take, because around now, with HuskyTHON three days away, it’s obviously going to take up more time than it did back in September. Collaboration comes into play a lot here too, because what might be a huge task for an individual could be very manageable with a few people involved. The fundraising team, and entire management team, is extremely helpful, so if I e-mail or send a text asking for help with something, someone will always step up.