Big Orange Give OR: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Money Bomb DARREN HUGHES Communications Director University of Tennessee Foundation

The Target $125,000 in 125 Hours * We raised $250,105

The Strategy 99% 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 Big Orange Give DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

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 Big Orange Give DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

Communication Priorities Big Orange Give DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

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 Big Orange Give DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

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% Big Orange Give DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

Results: Social Media UT Knoxville alumni FB page had 283 (+2.5%) new likes, twelve unlikes Avg daily post reach during BOG: 19,515 Avg daily post reach prev 3 months: 3,834 Total FB reach: approximately 250, % of reach was organic; 20% was result of FB ad buy ($480) Retweets: 251; New followers: 108 (+2.5%) Big Orange Give DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

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 Big Orange Give DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

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 Big Orange Give DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

Big Orange Give

Keys: Speaking from Many Voices 22,685 – opened more than one 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) Big Orange Give DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

Keys: Speaking from Many Voices Big Orange Give

Keys: Path of Least Resistance Big Orange Give DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation Proactive. We engaged the campus and volunteers from the earliest stages Created Communications Toolkit for colleges, departments, and campus units

Big Orange Give

Keys: Social Media Treated BigOrangeGive as a verb and hashtag’d it to death Big Orange Give DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

Keys: Social Media Big Orange Give

Keys: Social Media Treated BigOrangeGive as a verb and hashtag’d it to death Drove social media from top level Big Orange Give DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

Keys: Social Media Big Orange Give

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 Big Orange Give DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

Keys: Social Media Big Orange Give DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

Keys: Stewardship Confirmation from day’s challenger A standard gift receipt from Gift Processing 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 Big Orange Give DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

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) Big Orange Give DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

Keys: Web Design 1.Spin up a web server running Node 2.Query the iModules API via an HTTP GET request 3.Parse the returned XML into a JSON object 4.Wrap the JSON in a callback function 5.Make an AJAX request from the browser using JSONP 6.Use that result for the data visualization Big Orange Give DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

Keys: Web Design Drew Edwards Freelance Developer Big Orange Give DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

Questions? Darren Hughes bigorangegive.utk.edu