From the Nominator

Through adjusting our communications strategy, Kansas State's (KSU's) calendar year-end (CYE) appeal raised $33,766 more this year even though we sent it to 1,355 fewer households. In the past, we’d feature a generic student, often a KSU Foundation student employee, to be the “voice” of the appeal. Since this is a general appeal where donors can give to whatever they want, we can’t focus the appeal too much on one thing. However, this year, our strategic solicitations team worked with the marketing communications team to create a variety of pieces around the CYE appeal. We worked with KSU’s financial aid office to pinpoint an average student who receives need-based scholarships and asked her to be the voice of the appeal, and she agreed. Caitie Frahm is an online, non-traditional student in the College of Education, and she had a compelling story to tell. We featured Caitie in a written magazine and online article, a few versions of a video, and as the voice of the CYE appeal. We ran the full-length video in our monthly e-newsletter before the CYE appeal drop. In the CYE mail piece and email, we also included a short video of Caitie asking people to support students like her. The following month, we featured the web article about Caitie in the newsletter. And for anyone who gave to the CYE appeal, they received a short video from Caitie thanking them for their gift.

From the Judges

Good change-up from previous campaigns to create a wide but cohesive message that was less expensive and had higher results. Good foresight to allow donors to get to know a student throughout the campaign and to feature a non-traditional student. Collaboration paid off.