When Columbia University raised more than $7.8 million in a 24-hour period during its online Giving Day campaign in 2013, the institution set a new model for fundraising in higher education. The institution set up a website to serve as a central hub, then mobilized social media (primarily through Facebook), designated alumni fundraising champions and social media influencers, hosted on-campus events with expert panels that were livestreamed on the web and recorded video projects to thank donors, among other initiatives.
Nearly 10,000 gifts came in from all 50 states and 53 countries.
Slowly, people around the country began to take notice. Lacrecia James, annual fund manager at Xavier University of Louisiana, was one of those people.
James says that, after reading about Columbia’s success the year before—the first year of Columbia Giving Day—she thought her institution could adopt a similar model. James and her team began to identify top social media influencers in the Xavier alumni network and set out to launch “Give. Love. Xavier Day.”
“We wanted to make this campaign different by having more of a peer-to-peer asks, so we started targeting people who already had a huge social media following,” says James. But they didn’t recruit just anyone who was active on Facebook and Twitter; the targeted captains were also past donors and could convey the importance of giving to their alma mater.
After identifying the champions, James says she created a detailed posting calendar for her champions to use that included text they could copy and paste onto their own networks for easy sharing.
“I knew that, to get them on board, I had to make it as easy for them as possible,” she says.
