The great Sy Seymour wrote, “what we have plenty of time to do is often the thing that never gets done.”

With this in mind, Marshall University wanted to find a way to end their fundraising year with a bang. “In the past, we’d enjoyed increasing success during the final month of the fiscal year,” said Griffin Talbot, Director of Annual Giving, “so we wanted to see if we could close out the year with our strongest June ever.”

The annual giving team launched the MU Challenge, a 30 day campaign with the goal of acquiring 630 donors by 6/30. Building on a commitment from two alumni to donate $10,000 if the goal was met, the team put in play a targeted direct mail appeal followed by several email communications. Progress was tracked in real time and available for all to see on the campaign’s website.

When the campaign was over, the team had tallied 648 donors during June, hitting their goal and surpassing the previous June donor count by over 50%. What’s more, Marshall decided to eliminate one of the scheduled emails because they hit their goal with days to spare.

Want to learn more? CLICK HERE for AGN’s Webinar on Constructing Donor Challenges.