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Setting students on a path to serve others, their communities, and the world is often part of colleges’ and universities’ mission statements. So, it is fitting that many institutions launch student-led fundraising efforts. These initiatives are instrumental in fostering a culture of giving back among your students — and if you’re lucky, your institution may be among the beneficiaries of your future alumni’s generosity someday.
So, what exactly does a successful student-led fundraising effort look like? How can your institution launch one?
Energize
“Enhance the lives of children and families impacted by childhood cancer.” That’s the mission of Pennsylvania State University’s THON — the largest student-led philanthropy in the world. Since its inception in the 1970s, the initiative has raised a remarkable $204 million.
“It’s important for universities that want to do something similar to find a mission on campus that is important to their students,” said Logan Echard, the director of analytics and strategy for Four Diamonds at Penn State Health Children’s Hospital (THON’s sole beneficiary). “Uniting people around a common goal can energize and excite the entire school community.”
While THON has seen incredible results with the cause they’ve chosen to support, you don’t have to look outside your campus. Many schools have had success with student-led initiatives that serve their fellow students. “Students helping students” is a powerful message for rallying your students. UT Austin’s ContribUTe 2020 campaign, which received a Gold-level Circle of Excellence award from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), is a great example. The initiative benefitted the university’s Counseling and Mental Health Center, Student Emergency Services, and the UT Outpost Food Pantry.
“The student-led awards truly showcase student advancement programs that create awareness and garner funds to advance the mission of their programs and the institution,” said Robert Henry (vice president of people, culture, and talent for CASE) of the award-winning campaign.
Educate
Education is another fundamental component of any successful fundraising campaign, but particularly for student-led initiatives. Development staff will be key in sharing advice and tips for fundraising effectively, but some students may need more information about the power of philanthropy and why they should get involved in the first place.
“Education is the most important part of student fundraising — teaching them that their gift has power and isn’t a drop in a bucket and that they can choose where to direct it,” said Brittany Papke, associate director of special programs at UT Austin. “Most students aren’t aware that [some] universities are non-profit entities. If your students look at their university as a corporation out to make a buck off of them, they won’t care about fundraising efforts.”
Papke is a strong advocate for education outside of specific campaigns. You may want to start by simply gauging where your students are and get your development team involved in conversations with them.
“Texas Development supports a registered student organization called The Student Foundation, which provides tangible experiences that help educate the student body on philanthropy,” Papke said. They host volunteer opportunities so students can see their gifts in action, educational panels, tabling events, and training sessions about crowdfunding.
Once students are actively fundraising for a cause, it will be vital to share fundraising best practices, the power of storytelling, and language that can help them secure donations for their cause. Resilience and willingness to learn from mistakes are key for students.
“They must be able to learn from experiences and decisions that didn’t go as planned and use that knowledge to fuel future decisions,” Echard said.
Empower
THON leaders list student empowerment as a vital ingredient for successful student-led fundraising.
“From my experience, it’s incredibly important to empower students to make decisions, help students to learn from previous experiences and coach them on current fundraising best practices to help them stay on top of trends,” Echard shared. “For example, empowerment and ownership in what they do are important to ensure that each student can talk about the cause they’re supporting and be excited and energized to fundraise or put meaningful work into that mission every day.”
UT Austin’s ContribUTe campaign is a great place to start to see what goes into empowering your students. Their ambassador toolkit provides:
- Suggested action items for students (“put your ambassador link in your Instagram or Twitter bio”)
- tips for having conversations about donating to the campaign (“one-on-one conversations yield the highest success rates when fundraising”)
- language and data they can use to drive donations (“$10 provides a week of meals to the UT Outpost”)
- a dashboard to track their fundraising progress.
All these tools and tips serve as a guide for students’ discussions with friends and family about the cause and enable them to be successful in their fundraising efforts. Online tools and dashboards tools resonate with many students as they emulate many of the popular progress-tracking tools today. Plus, it’s an easy way for them to stay on top of their fundraising, especially if the app is available on their cell phones.
Remember
While THON also credits some of its success to the use of a fundraising platform, it’s understandable that some colleges and universities might not have a budget for tools like these. It’s okay to start small.
“THON didn’t become the largest student-run philanthropy in one year,” Echard reminds us. “It’s taken many years of strategic planning and growth for THON to become what it is today.”
If you have other advice for student-led fundraising or want to share your institution’s success story, comment below!
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