Campbell Advancement team wins two international CASE awards

BUIES CREEK — Campbell University’s Office of Advancement won two CASE Circle of Excellence awards for its work on the 2014 Thank-A-Giver (TAG) Day.

Campbell’s two bronze awards — the school’s first in the annual international contest of the Council of Advancement in Secondary Education — were the University’s first at this level, competing against more than 625 higher ed institutions, independent schools and nonprofits from around the world. Campbell has won a combined 20 CASE awards at the district level (the nine-state Southeast region) over the past four years.

“CASE is the standard for best practices in university marketing, communications, fundraising, and alumni relations programs,” said Britt Davis, vice president of advancement and admissions and assistant to the president. “To receive national recognition on top of our Southeastern regional awards is a strong validation that Campbell University’s advancement program is performing at a level that rivals and exceeds the best colleges and universities in this nation.”

TAG Day — a collaboration of the office’s communications/marketing and annual giving departments — was recognized in the “Best Use of Social Media” and “Fundraising Programs” categories this year. The one-day event, which will become a Homecoming Week tradition, is designed to celebrate and recognize donors and raise awareness about how their gifts benefit Campbell University students. In 2014, students, faculty and staff were invited to take photos of themselves with “tagged” items on campus — such as statues, buildings and classrooms — and post those images to social media with short “thank you” notes. On Oct. 16, more than 1,200 TAG Day messages were posted to social media, reaching more than a half-million people on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Director of Annual Giving Sarah Swain, Director of Digital Media Cherry Crayton, Director of Visual Identity Jonathan Bronsink and Web Developer Carlos Cano teamed to plan and execute the TAG Day effort, with Crayton heading social media and Swain the fundraising side. In their comments, CASE judges applauded the team’s innovation and the use of students to get the word out about Campbell’s donors.

“While the core idea of this campaign isn’t new, it did contain several innovative ideas that make it a best-in-class example of using social media for donor appreciation,” the judges wrote.