From the Nominator

Since 2016, Vanderbilt University’s Giving Day has been our largest giving tradition, rallying alumni, faculty, staff, parents, and fans to support the university. In 2024, our goal was 7,500 donors, and we exceeded that with 7,759 donors—our highest count since 2019. We also raised $10.2 million, marking only our second eight-figure total in Giving Day history. To achieve this success, we launched an early giving push with targeted messaging tailored to donor behavior and demographics. Our creative approach featured branding inspired by Nashville's neon signage, resonating with younger donors and extending into our direct mail, which included vinyl sticker giveaways. We also streamlined our matches and challenges to encourage participation and expanded on-campus engagement with more than 1,200 giveaways to raise awareness. Despite detailed planning, a campus protest over the Israel-Hamas conflict disrupted our timeline. To allow campus sentiment to stabilize, we delayed our email campaign by two weeks and postponed our direct mail drop by a week. We also shifted social media efforts to Vanderbilt Athletics accounts to maintain positive engagement.  Even with these challenges, our direct mail performance increased by 93.9% and social giving rose by 58.6% compared to the previous year. Strong collaboration between communications and marketing and development and alumni relations allowed us to pivot quickly, ensuring we met our goals while strengthening donor engagement and reinforcing Vanderbilt’s sense of community.

From the Judges

Vanderbilt delivered a highly professional and data-informed giving day, with strong internal collaboration, strategic segmentation, and multi-team execution. The campaign demonstrated exceptional flexibility, pivoting communication channels in response to campus events while maintaining standout results—including a 94% increase in direct mail performance and a 59% rise in social media giving. Creative elements like motion graphics and late-night emails to younger alumni, combined with strong institutional alignment and over 1,000 employee donors, led to an impressive return on investment and alumni engagement.