Giving Days are 24-hour online fundraisers that raise money for a nonprofit or higher education institution. By using digital tools and social media networks, these single-day donation drives can help recruit new donors, re-connect existing donors to their university and build a sense of community and excitement around donating to an alma mater. Higher education institutions seem to have woken up to the potential success of one-day fundraisers in 2012, when Columbia University raised $6.9 million in a 24-hour period. This was followed up in 2013, when Columbia raised $7.8 million from over 9,700 gifts. In this deck, we offer recommendations that any higher education institution can implement to help run its most engaging and successful Giving Day yet.

1. COPYRIGHT 2015 CORPORATE INSIGHT, INC.
AUTHOR: AMANDA KOHN
PUBLISHED: JUNE 2015
Best Practices for
Maximizing
Giving Day Potential
One Day to Deliver!

2. ABOUT CORPORATE INSIGHT
Connect With Us
Corporate Insight provides competitive intelligence and user experience research to the nation’s leading
academic and financial institutions. For over 20 years, the firm has tracked technological developments in
the financial services industry, identifying best practices in online banking and investing, online insurance,
mobile finance, active trading platforms, social media and other emerging areas. There are no
assumptions in Corporate Insight’s work – we use live accounts at all of the institutions we research,
providing our clients with unparalleled, unbiased intelligence on the competition.
AMANDA KOHN
Research Associate
(646) 454-2664
akohn@corporateinsight.com
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3. ABOUT ALUMNI MONITOR
Corporate Insight’s latest monitor service, Alumni Monitor, examines the online
and offline experience for alumni of leading higher education institutions.
Focusing on actual data and live sites, our research service provides higher
education institutions with a unique, first-hand look at the online resources and
mar-com materials that constitute the alumni experience.
ABOUT:ALUMNIMONITOR

4. BACKGROUND:GIVINGDAYS BACKGROUND
Giving Days are 24-hour online fundraisers that raise money for a nonprofit
or higher education institution. By using digital tools and social media
networks, these single-day donation drives can help recruit new donors,
re-connect existing donors to their university and build a sense of
community and excitement around donating to an alma mater.
Higher education institutions seem to have woken up to the potential
success of one-day fundraisers in 2012, when Columbia University raised
$6.9 million in a 24-hour period. This was followed up in 2013, when
Columbia raised $7.8 million from over 9,700 gifts.
In this deck, we offer recommendations
that any higher education institution can
implement to help run its most engaging
and successful Giving Day yet.

5. COVERAGE GROUP
5
BACKGROUND:ALUMNIMONITORCOVERAGEGROUP
Our full Alumni Monitor coverage group features 33 colleges and universities. For
this investigation, we focused on the best-in-class Giving Day tools, features and
strategies from four institutions:
2nd Giving Day – April 2015
Raised over $1 million from 5,673 donors
1st Giving Day – March 2015
Raised over $6.9 million from over 9,600 gifts
1st Giving Day – February 2015
Raised over $730k from 2,306 gifts
2nd Giving Day – April 2015
Raised over $1.3 million from 6,078 donors

6. RECOMMENDATION #1:
LAUNCH A GIVING DAY MICROSITE
RECOMMENDATION#1
 Centralizes all Giving Day-related
information
o Overview, Give Now link,
challenge descriptions, FAQs,
etc.
 Separates everyday marketing
from the Giving Day
o Helps eliminate any confusion
about concurrent
campaigns/fundraisers
 Include responsive design
o Helps with usability across
devices and screen sizes
o Consistent color scheme, design
and branding
Cornell University’s Giving Day Microsite

7. RECOMMENDATION #2:
TAKE ADVANTAGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS
RECOMMENDATION#2
 Share videos, photos and
updates on Facebook, Twitter,
LinkedIn, Instagram and
YouTube
 Simple way to advertise,
promote and send updates and
announcements
 Enables alumni to help promote
the event via re-posts and likes
 Use #hashtags to advertise and
promote the fundraiser and
allow the online community to
engage socially
The College of William and Mary Facebook Post

8. RECOMMENDATION #3:
KEEP UP CONTACT OVER THE COURSE OF THE DAY
RECOMMENDATION#3
 Email outreach to prospective
donors to supplement social
media posts, updates and ads
 Emails should contain updates
about the total number of
donors and amount given, new
announcements or challenges,
etc.
 Personalize the email
 Space out emails within the 24-
hour period
o William & Mary sent seven
emails throughout the day;
Ithaca sent four
Ithaca College Sample Email

9. RECOMMENDATION #4:
INTEGRATE ANNOUNCED AND SURPRISE CHALLENGES
 Once a challenge is met or
completed, the challenge
funds are unlocked
 Helps motivate and
incentivize donors to
participate in the fundraiser
both financially and socially
 Can play on existing rivalries
within the college to
generate more enthusiasm
and donations
RECOMMENDATION#4
The College of William and Mary Number of Donors Challenge
Boston University Athletics Challenge

10.  Hourly Challenges
 Athletics Challenge
o BU (bonus $$ to top three teams in
terms of donors)
 Giving Challenges
o Cornell (bonus $$ for the school if
they get at least one donor from
each U.S. state)
 Engagement Challenges
o Cornell (hashtag challenge)
 Donor Milestones
o William & Mary ($50k bonus
donation unlocked if 500 donors
give by 11am)
RECOMMENDATION#4(CONT.)
Ithaca College Hourly Challenges Results
Cornell University Hashtag Challenge
RECOMMENDATION #4:
INTEGRATE ANNOUNCED AND SURPRISE CHALLENGES

11. RECOMMENDATION #5:
FIND YOUR UNIQUE TWIST
RECOMMENDATION#5
 Helps make the university’s Giving Day memorable and attractive
 E.g., Cornell hosted a 24-hour live webcast that featured student group
performances, faculty discussing their research endeavors and alumni
reminiscing about their time at Cornell
o Hosted by Office of Alumni Relations
Cornell LIVE Webcast

12. RECOMMENDATION#5(CONT.)
 E.g., BU launched a Rhett’s Ralliers rewards program where supporters
of BU could register up to three social media accounts and complete
different tasks for points (e.g., tweet using #BUGivingDay)
o The top five Ralliers with the most points received a prize pack of BU
merchandise at the end of the program
o Program started about 3.5 weeks prior to the Giving Day
Boston University Rhett’s Rhalliers Program
RECOMMENDATION #5:
FIND YOUR UNIQUE TWIST

13. LOOKINGFORWARD
 Giving Days look poised to continue to grow in popularity amongst
higher education institutions.
 In order for this style of fundraiser to continue to be a success, higher
education institutions will need to add more creative challenges and
twists. Universities should continue to have separate microsites for their
Giving Day, use all social media platforms and send emails throughout
the day.
FUTURE OF GIVING DAYS : WHAT’S NEXT?

14. ABOUT THE AUTHORABOUT:AUTHOR
Amanda Kohn
Research Associate
Alumni Monitor
Amanda Kohn is a Research Associate for Corporate Insight’s Alumni Monitor research
service. She has conducted extensive research within the higher education industry,
examining the online and offline user experience of leading higher education institutions.
This slide deck is the result of her ongoing research into alumni engagement and participation
from leading higher education institutions.
Amanda graduated with her MPA from Binghamton University in 2014.
Contact Amanda Kohn:
(646) 454-2664
akohn@corporateinsight.com
Connect with Amanda
Connect with CI
Alumni Monitor is a service mark of Corporate Insight, Inc.; all rights reserved.