Using Challenges to Drive Giving Day Success with Wichita Collegiate
In their first year using GiveGab for WCS Day of Giving 2019, Wichita Collegiate School exceeded their fundraising and engagement goals with a Giving Day challenge!
Wichita Collegiate School’s mission is to educate today's students to be tomorrow's leaders through a diverse and caring community with passionate teachers and an inspiring curriculum.
Lisa Schooler, Director of Alumni Relations and Digital Media, and Katie Gunzelman, Assistant Director of Development & Communication at Wichita Collegiate School, shared their team’s experience launching their first Giving Day using GiveGab’s platform.
Finding A Giving Day Solution With GiveGab
When Wichita Collegiate School was in search of new ways to grow their annual Giving Day, they were looking for a partner they could trust. They knew that in order to grow, they would need a custom platform to support their day. With an extensive list of features and a dedicated project manager, they felt confident they would be set up for success on GiveGab.
“We hadn't used another platform for other giving days, but struggled with accurate and timely reporting throughout the day on our own and didn't feel capable of hosting match challenges or giveaways because of that.”
Wichita Collegiate School was eager to use our Challenges functionality for their upcoming Giving Day.
Using Challenges to Incentivise Giving
Challenges are a proven way to incentivize donors and raise engagement during a Giving Day.
A Challenge is a set goal that, once reached, unlocks a donation of a predetermined amount from the sponsoring organization/donor.
They are a great way to encourage support as individual donors work as a team to unlock a larger donation from the sponsor. Individual donors will be reassured that each donation, large or small, works towards reaching the goal that will unlock the Challenge's sponsor donations.
On GiveGab, we offer customizable challenge functionality. Once you acquire challenge funds from a donor or business, you can input this information into the platform. You can name and create a description for your challenge as well as upload a logo of the sponsor. Most importantly you can add the goal for your day as well as the amount that will be released once the goal is met.
Once a Challenge is created within GiveGab, you will be able to share and highlight it throughout the day. A progress bar will also appear letting donors know how close you are to reaching your goal.
When a Giving Day challenge goal is met, the challenge amount is released and the funds automatically appear in your school or organization’s total raised.
For their October 2019 Giving Day, Wichita Collegiate School was able to secure funds for a school-wide giving challenge. An alumnus promised a $100,000 donation if the school reached 250 donors during their 24-hour day.
Wichita Collegiate School graciously accepted this gift and quickly began working to bring this challenge to life. They were determined to reach this goal and unlock these funds that could go on to make a large impact for their school.
The school worked with GiveGab to get this challenge created on our platform so they could begin spreading the word.
“Having that matching gift really drove our strategy when it came to participation - we felt comfortable aiming a little higher on participation because we felt so much excitement as we shared more and more about our matching gift. With participation so high after this Day of Giving, we will absolutely aim in the future to have similar matching challenges, from our same generous donor or perhaps other individual or group donors.”
The Giving Day team highlighted their challenge on social media throughout the day to create buzz around this special initiative. They even made sure to give a shout out to the generous donor that sponsored this $100,000 challenge.
“We LOVED the matching gift functionality - the countdown to participation to unlock the gift was great and it was so fun to see the ticker pop up $100k more when we reached that 250-donor mark.”
The GiveGab Difference
GiveGab prides itself on our commitment to making our Giving Day partners feel supported. That is why there were many teammembers helping Wichita Collegiate School every step of the way. The school worked closely with our Associate Director of Higher-Ed and K-12 Engagement and their dedicated project manager to collaborate on goals and strategy for their Giving Day.
“From the first demonstration with Amy, to working with Rebekah all the way through, the company and its representatives were amazing. They were responsive and explained everything so well. We'd recommend GiveGab to anybody!”
Wichita Collegiate School was also able to utilize our customer success team through GG Chat. With extended support hours during their Giving Day, donors and faculty could use our blue chat bubble to get technical support at any time on their big day.
“GiveGab's customer service was above-and-beyond. With such a short turnaround time of 30 days, from signing to our Giving Day, they created a website that still read like us. They listened to our concerns, answered silly questions, and kept us in the loop on all situations. The day went seamlessly in large part because of a beautiful website that drove participation and positivity around our annual fund.”
Results
“We're nearly to our yearly goal and have given ourselves a major leg up for participation, particularly among current parents. Our Giving Day produced more current parent participation in one day than we produced in all of last year.”
Wichita Collegiate School could not have been happier with the success of their Giving Day that took place on October 3, 2019. They were able to boost participation and exceeded their goal of 250 donors.
“We felt this past Day of Giving fared better than the one we hosted in February 2019. People are more excited and happy at the beginning of the school year than in the middle or at the end! Plus, we felt so much excitement and positivity from community members when they saw us in the hallways or in front of buildings welcoming families that day. It offered the community some transparency in seeing some activities of the Advancement Office.
With the matching gift opportunity, we feel that "wowed" a lot of people - that they were more excited to give with such an amazing gift on the line. Plus, we felt tying that gift to number of gifts versus dollars given helped incentivize people in a different way, supporting that we truly feel participation is what matters versus the ability or willingness to write a big check. And our donors supported that line of thinking - we nearly doubled our participation goal for the day!”
Fundraising Results for 2019
$241,592.35
Raised
487
Donors
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