In 2019, the University of California, Davis hosted its third Give Day as a part of Picnic Day, a celebration of who we are and how our work contributes to the global community. A 29-hour event, Give Day at UC Davis is more than just a large-scale solicitation. It is a social media movement, fueled by a robust communications strategy and the relationships we have built with our leadership-level donors who sponsor challenge gifts—pledges that are fulfilled only if a number of additional donations are received during the event. In order to serve the needs of our campus partners (the Annual and Special Gifts Program) and ensure a donor experience worthy of this celebration, every team within Advancement Services works together to keep the gift and donor data pieces moving—really, really big pieces. In the past we have had to rely on flat file exports, bulk fund transfers from holding accounts, and white-knuckle grit to correctly transfer these gifts to our systems (Ellucian Advance and GREAT). However this year, with many lessons learned under our belt, we finally cracked the code on Give Day at Advancement Services –matching, batching, and dispatching more than $2 million dollars from 4,454 individual gifts—in less than two weeks.
