Big Orange Give: How We Doubled Fundraising Goals in 125 Hours

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

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

3. The Strategy 99% of the people who heard about Big Orange Give did notmake a gift The Big Orange Give is a communications effort

4. Fundraising Priorities Big Orange Give • Increase annual giving dollars • Increase annual giving participation, with a particular interest in reaching new and lapsed donors DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

5. Communication Priorities Big Orange Give • 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 DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

6. Communication Priorities Big Orange Give DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

7. Other Objectives Big Orange Give • 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 DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

8. Results: Fundraising Big Orange Give • 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% DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

9. Results: Social Media Big Orange Give • 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%) DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

10. Keys: Preparation and Coordination Big Orange Give • 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 DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

11. Keys: Giving Challenges Big Orange Give • 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 DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

12. Big Orange Give

13. Big Orange Give

14. Keys: Speaking from Many Voices Big Orange Give • 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) DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

15. Keys: Speaking from Many Voices Big Orange Give

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

17. Big Orange Give

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

19. Keys: Social Media Big Orange Give

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

21. Keys: Social Media Big Orange Give

22. Keys: Social Media Big Orange Give • 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 DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

23. Keys: Social Media Big Orange Give DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

24. Keys: Stewardship Big Orange Give • 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 DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

25. Keys: Web Design Big Orange Give • 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) DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

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

27. Keys: Web Design Big Orange Give Drew Edwards Freelance Developer dedwards@utk.edu DARREN HUGHES UT Foundation

28. Questions? Darren Hughes darren@tennessee.edu 865.974.2507 bigorangegive.utk.edu