Rag (student society)

Rags are student-run charitable fundraising organisations that are widespread in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Some are run as student societies whilst others sit with campaigns within their student unions. Most universities in the UK and Ireland, as well as some in the Netherlands and the Commonwealth countries of South Africa and Singapore have a rag. In some universities rags are known as Charities Campaigns, Charity Appeals, Charity Committees (or Kommittees), Jool or Karnivals, but they all share many attributes.

In the UK, the National Student Fundraising Association (NaSFA), set up in December 2011, exists as a support and resource sharing organisation run by those managing rags for others managing rags.

The Oxford English Dictionary states that the origin of the word "rag" is from "An act of ragging; esp. an extensive display of noisy disorderly conduct, carried on in defiance of authority or discipline", and provides a citation from 1864, noting that the word was known in Oxford before this date.

Rags flourished in the inter-war period, but were not always aimed at charity. The rivalry between University College London and King's College London led to rags becoming running battles. In 1919, the visiting American prohibitionist William Johnson was kidnapped and subsequently lost an eye during a police rescue attempt, while in 1922 part of the balustrade in the King's College quad was demolished during a battle with UCL students. As well as those in London, rags at Oxford and Cambridge were known for destruction of property and antisocial behaviour. The attack on Newnham College by over a thousand undergraduate men following a vote on degrees for women in 1921 was widely described as a 'rag'.

In 1920 the Birmingham Daily Post noted the start of a shift to rags being charity events at Durham University: "Durham University students have set a new standard in 'rags,' for their programme yesterday was of a constructive rather than destructive type, and as the procession marched through the city a collection was taken for the hospital. This is a good example to the student world, and calculated to do more to commend culture to the people than those meaningless orgies which have taken place elsewhere in the past, to the destruction of property and the detriment of law and order." The following year, 1921, the University of Manchester rag collected money for local medical charities for the first time and students at Cambridge collected for the Haig Fund at a Poppy Day Rag, while in 1923 students at King's College London dressed as ancient Egyptians to raise money for the European War Relief Fund. Glasgow University Students' Unemployment Day, later the university's Charities Week Appeal, started in 1922 and included publication of the Ygorra magazine, with proceeds going to city hospitals and the Lord Provost's Fund for the Unemployed.

In South Africa, a rag was started at the University of Pretoria in the 1920s, and at the University of Witwatersrand in 1922, with charity collections starting in 1929.

More recently, backronyms have been invented for RAG, including "raise and give", "remember and give" and "raising and giving".

Traditionally fundraising activities have centred on an annual Rag Week, with events each day for the week. While some Rags are only active for this week, others use "Rag Week" as their flagship week to encourage participation for the whole year.