CSUB Giving Day
Since moving into the Marketing and Communications Specialist role, I have worked as lead for the digital content during CSUB’s Giving Day: Raising for `Runners! I worked closely with then director of marketing and communications to create captions, a full timeline of posting, as well as including artwork.
I feel that each year has gotten stronger, especially as our amounts raised continue to grow higher. I think all of our collective efforts on the fundraising and marketing sides speak for itself.
Marketing plan
The past three years, I’ve created an all-encompassing marketing plan involving CSUB Alumni, the Office of Marketing and Communications and the Annual Giving & Stewardship office. I’ve listed the complete timeline for the save the dates, including in newsletters, as well as for emails to be sent out, social media timeline and finalizing details for social media videos and other content necessary;.
Social Media Plan
I am the lead of the social media content, creating and scheduling content for the full 24 hours. While most posts are scheduled ahead of time, others are posted in the moment with updates on challenges, resharing others who have tagged us and overall monitoring of the posts and any comments that might be received. I would then also work with the Giving Day Ambassadors team to go over best practices for posting, sending reminders to our campus communicators teams, providing them with the toolkits needed for social media and serving as a resource for the team. That also means collaborating with the Alumni Association, as well as the four colleges.
Rebranding Name
Our committee decided to revamp the entire campaign after skipping the 2023 event. We renamed it and came up with a new look. We all brainstormed names and taglines, then voted anonymously in the end. The final outcome was mine, “Raising for `Runners” as the chosen name.
Social Media Graphics
When we rebranded “Giving Day” to “Raising for `Runners,” we’d talked about creating a new logo. I nudged the team with the ideas I thought, including bubble lettering and sent examples to our graphic designer, Chris, who brought that vision to life.
I’ve also worked to create fun and creative graphics, not only for myself to use during the 24-hour period, including stories with “Why I give…” prompts, using templates for their profile photos on social media, LinkedIn and Facebook covers encouraging others to give and where to donate, along with other graphics of campus with how to give.
Ambassador Social Media Toolkit
While having created the essential graphics for the, it also morphed into me creating a toolkit that was provided when people on campus signed up to be an ambassador. They received all the graphics. I’d created, along with sample messaging for emails and social media posts, encouraging them to send to their circles or post on their social media pages.
Social Media Scheduling
Throughout the process, I work closely with the Annual Stewardship Director, Eric, and coordinator, Grace, to ensure that all challenges, information and graphics are up to date leading up to the main event in the springtime. We are in communication with one another leading up to and, of course, the day of, depending on what needs to be pushed more on social media and other reminders for challenges, etc. This year, we also partnered with local restaurants for various
Filming/scripting
Last year, I worked with Athena to get a video together for the Alumni Association, but couldn’t make it to the filming. We brainstormed together, sending each other videos, while mapping out a plan for the filming. This year, we didn’t have a chance to record a full video, but I filmed and edited a quick video of Sarah Hendrick and Eric Weis for a call on their challenges of meeting the donations and giving toward whatever area had the most donations from alumni, as well as faculty and staff.
Giving Day is a true team effort that couldn’t happen without all the areas on campus, especially the University Advancement division collaborating and communicating with one another.
Other notable achievements:
The Education Digital Marketing Awards (EDMAwards) || Outstanding work in the category of: Social media campaign - Giving Day 2022 (Bronze winner)
2022: The university raised $49,424 from 429 gifts during the 24-hour engagement and fundraising marathon. This year’s Giving Day had 368 donors, of which 131 were new donors to the university. In addition, CSUB saw 91 new email address signups for the event.
2024: CSUB’s Raising for `Runners Giving Day, which ran from noon on April 2 to noon on April 3, brought in $175,000 from more than 1,000 gifts, a new record. The university’s previous three Giving Day events combined raised more than $400,000 from nearly 1,700 gifts. This year’s Giving Day brought in 891 donors, shattering the university’s previous record of 535 donors in 2021. More than 600 were first-time donors.
2025: Raising for `Runners Giving Day — which ran from noon on April 8 to noon on April 9 — brought in $168,000 from nearly 1,000 donors, topping the university’s previous record of 891 donors last year. Over 600 were new donors to CSUB this year.