From the Nominator

"On 20 March 20, the Director of Philanthropy & Alumni Engagement (PAE) met with the university’s senior leadership to discuss the urgent, emerging needs of our students as the UK went into lockdown and the university’s facilities closed and online learning commenced. 

At Brighton we pivoted quickly, diverting unrestricted donations to a new COVID-19 Student Support Fund, and working with Santander Universities UK to repurpose their partnership funding for the year. By 24 March the fund opened to students for applications. Offering awards of up to £200 for anything they needed to continue their learning and, for our health sciences students, whatever they needed to keep them safe on the front line of the COVID response (PPE, wipe-able shoes and uniform). The applications and awards process had to be managed by the PAE team as the student finance team was already swamped.

With the fund in place our attention turned to fundraising. The team fundraising (including the director) were all new in post in the last 2-3 years. There had also been no mass fundraising campaign–telephone or direct mail–since 2016. 

Using existing impact stories and our Springboard platform, we set up a digital appeal. The first email outlined our response to COVID-19 (no ask), followed by an email from the vice chancellor calling for donations to help students. We also had social media from PAE “donating our weekly parking/coffee money.” It was simple, cost nothing, and raised an extra £9,000."

From the Judges

The University of Brighton has a small team, and a group of stakeholders who have not received any asks in recent years. We were impressed with how this new team came together to efficiently put a crowdfunding campaign in place, with results that would support their student community. The University of Brighton team has shown that they are capable of overcoming adversity, implementing quickly and successfully. They have created the foundations from which to grow their philanthropic programme. The messaging used in the campaign was simple and very effective, and a robust approach to segmented stewardship was implemented. This entry is a shining example of how a small team achieves results, despite facing challenges, and is an inspiration to new and small philanthropy teams everywhere.