Big Orange GiveOR: How I Learned to Stop

Worrying and Love the Money Bomb

DARREN HUGHESCommunications Director

University of Tennessee Foundationdarren@tennessee.edu

The Target$125,000 in 125 Hours

* We raised $250,105

The Strategy99% of the people who

heard about Big Orange Give did not make a gift

The Big Orange Give is a communications effort

Fundraising Priorities

• Increase annual giving dollars• Increase annual giving participation, with a

particular interest in reaching new and lapsed donors

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Communication Priorities

• Share priority fundraising messages• Introduce giving tagline, “Contribute to Big

Ideas,” to a wider audience• Leverage and expand UT Knoxville’s Big

Orange, Big Ideas branding efforts• Improve social media efforts

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Communication Priorities

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Other Objectives

• Practice effective collaboration across the entire campus

• Identify and equip a group of alumni “champions” (volunteer leaders, board members, prominent alumni, student alumni associates) to advocate on UT’s behalf

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Results: Fundraising

• Total raised: $250,105 ($173,068)• Matches and pre-arranged gifts:$77,037• Total number of gifts, excluding matches and

pre-arranged: 1,277• Average gift size: $135• New donors: 17%• Lapsed donors: 27%• Donors whose lifetime giving is less than

$1,000: 57%

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Results: Social Media

• UT Knoxville alumni FB page had 283 (+2.5%) new likes, twelve unlikes

• Avg daily post reach during BOG: 19,515Avg daily post reach prev 3 months: 3,834

• Total FB reach: approximately 250,000.• 80% of reach was organic; 20% was result of

FB ad buy ($480)• Retweets: 251; New followers: 108 (+2.5%)

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Keys: Preparation and Coordination

• Administrative buy-in• 8-month project• 20-member executive team: central

communications, volunteer leaders, faculty, students, athletics, college communicators, and alumni and development staff

• 12 meetings• 50-item action plan

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Keys: Giving Challenges

• Each day began with a video message from a prominent alum who issued a matching gift challenge

• Peak giving hours corresponded directly with the issuing of those challenges

• On day three, the challenger offered a gift to everyone who gave more than $500; the average gift size increased by 29% (from $135 to $174) on that day

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Keys: Speaking from Many Voices

• 22,685 – opened more than one email• 3,240 – just Peyton Manning (Vols)• 758 – just Jimmy Cheek (administration)• 2,460 – just Dave Ramsey (finance/radio)• 3,185 – just Bill Bass (academics)• 1,862 – just Holly Warlick (Lady Vols)

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Keys: Speaking from Many Voices

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Keys: Path of Least Resistance

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• Proactive. We engaged the campus and volunteers from the earliest stages

• Created Communications Toolkit for colleges, departments, and campus units

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Keys: Social Media

• Treated BigOrangeGive as a verb and hashtag’d it to death

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Keys: Social Media

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Keys: Social Media

• Treated BigOrangeGive as a verb and hashtag’d it to death

• Drove social media from top level

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Keys: Social Media

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Keys: Social Media

• Treated BigOrangeGive as a verb and hashtag’d it to death

• Drove social media from top level• Monitored and responded to mentions, and

continually improvised

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Keys: Social Media

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Keys: Stewardship

• Confirmation email from day’s challenger• A standard gift receipt from Gift Processing• Email on 11/12 that summarized BOG and

included thank you video from UT students• Phone call from a Student Alumni Associate• Postcard from the Knoxville campus• Mentions in stewardship publications• Mentions in magazines and newsletters

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Keys: Web Design

• Big Orange Give microsite was built quickly using a modified, mobile-friendly Wordpress theme ($40)

• External host (WP Engine $290/year)• Nodejs virtual server (Nodejitsu $400/year)

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Keys: Web Design

1. Spin up a web server running Node 2. Query the iModules API via an HTTP GET

request3. Parse the returned XML into a JSON object4. Wrap the JSON in a callback function5. Make an AJAX request from the browser

using JSONP6. Use that result for the data visualization

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Keys: Web Design

Drew EdwardsFreelance Developerdedwards@utk.edu

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Questions?Darren Hughes

darren@tennessee.edu865.974.2507

bigorangegive.utk.edu