Best of CASE District VIII Award
 

Institution: The University of British Columbia

Title of entry: Donors’ dream for people with multiple sclerosis

About this entry: What: The University of British Columbia (UBC) produced a video (long and short versions), impact story and social media strategy (organic and paid) to celebrate an anonymous gift to UBC that to our knowledge is the single largest gift to multiple sclerosis (MS) research and care worldwide.

How: UBC Development & Alumni Engagement’s Integrated Marketing & Communications and Faculty of Medicine teams collaborated on a multi-faceted approach that combined our strengths in faculty engagement, visual and written storytelling and social media strategy.

Why: To demonstrate and articulate the donor’s vision for the largest ever gift to MS research/care, inspiring more donors to support our excellence in translational research and bring innovative therapies to B.C. patients sooner.

Results/impact: The story received 236,475 impressions via paid and organic social media promotion, 138,411 video views and 7,120 post engagements (clicks, likes, comments and shares) leading to over 2,000 page views of the full article posted under our website give.ubc.ca. The main video promoted was the shorter version, which received an incredible viewing rate of 97.9% video completion.

This storytelling strategy supported the Faculty of Medicine’s major and transformational gift strategy by demonstrating to prospects and donors how we can partner to identify interdisciplinary collaborations, address gaps and advance the research strengths of the Faculty of Medicine for the greatest impact on human health. The funds raised by the Faculty of Medicine’s frontline fundraisers and DAE collaborators have increased by 36% over the past three years.