New campaign encourages alumni to “Share the Wonderful”
By Lauren Ayala
Share the Wonderful is the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s first concentrated, multimedia, campus-wide fundraising campaign encouraging alumni to make annual gifts that support world-class education and discoveries. The campaign is a collaborative effort between the University of Wisconsin Foundation, the Wisconsin Alumni Association and UW-Madison.
The campaign launched September 15, 2012 to inspire alumni to recognize the value of their degree as well as the university’s mission to make the UW-Madison experience available to the next generation. The campaign raises awareness of the need for annual giving across campus. Gifts may be designated to the Chancellor’s Annual Fund, the Great People Annual Scholarship fund, various school/college annual funds or to any other unit a donor designates (The Wisconsin Union, for example). Gifts to annual funds provide the chancellor and deans with the resources they need to improve students’ educational experience and to recruit and retain the top faculty who inspire them.
Currently, less than 10 percent of the university’s 390,000 alumni make gifts to support UW-Madison’s academic mission. The campaign is designed to raise awareness that alumni support is needed and appreciated. As the university’s funding model changes, it looks more to philanthropy to support its core budget.
The campaign utilizes innovative online tactics to connect and engage with alumni no matter where they reside. At the heart of the campaign is a microsite filled with online games, unique experiences, and an interactive donation page. The site allows visitors to take a trip down memory lane, providing options to view slideshows and information based on the decade in which they graduated or will graduate. They can further customize their experience by choosing a theme they want to view, whether it be a cultural or athletic event. The slideshows evoke a sense of pride and passion, as pictures of raging Badger game days and a snowcapped Bascom Hill are vibrantly displayed. The site offers other interactive features such as the donation form, where donors can “amplify” their investment by toying with an interactive graph where they navigate the controls to see how a larger donation would directly impact the university.
Everyone has a different story to tell about their time at UW-Madison and the Share the Wonderful Campaign acknowledges that although these stories and may be different, they are all undeniably special.
Learn more about Share the Wonderful
