Best of CASE District VII Award
 

Institution: Utah Valley University

Title of entry: Utah Valley University EverGREEN Ambassador Program

About this entry: Utah Valley University’s (UVU) Strategic Engagement team’s new initiative, the EverGREEN Ambassador Program, was conceived in line with the University’s inaugural comprehensive fundraising campaign. Launched in October 2022, EverGREEN, the campaign for UVU, aims to “[focus] on student scholarships, college and unit initiatives, infrastructure to meet rising enrollment demands, planned gifts, and endowment increases to provide ongoing support for future generations.” The EverGREEN Ambassador Program was launched during the silent phase of the campaign in May 2022 to strategically engage with key donors leading up to the formal public campaign launch in October.

As part of the fundraising campaign, the EverGREEN Ambassadors Program invited UVU’s supporters to serve as extensions of the Institutional Advancement Strategic Engagement team. The objective for leveraging ambassadors for social media was two-fold: first, to identify principal-level donors with more than 10,000 followers for influencer marketing campaigns, and second, to track giving among participants before, during, and after their service as ambassadors. Each month, the Strategic Engagement team provided EverGREEN Ambassadors with UVU-related updates to share with their followers on selected social media channels. The team provided recommended visuals, captions, and hashtags, as well as a guide for sharing EverGREEN content.

The team’s goals were to increase strategic engagement with principal and major donors via social media by 52% by December 31, 2022, and increase use of the hashtag #EverGREEN among principal and major donors by 25% by December 31, 2022. These goals were not only met, but exceeded by a significant margin.