DU and Colorado College are holding a new annual alumni “giving challenge” from Sept. 1 to Nov. 7 to see which school can be the first to reach 1,500 undergraduate alumni donors.
“We want to try to pump up school spirit and rally alumni around a common cause: school pride,” said Nancy Christensen, assistant director of development in the Office of Annual Giving.
According to Christensen, the office approached CC over the summer and suggested the challenge as a way to boost alumni participation, which has been low in recent years. In the last fiscal year the alumni participation rate at DU was 7.57 percent.
“Some of our peer schools are up to 40 or 50 percent participation, and we would be thrilled with ten,” said Christensen.
The event is for undergraduate alumni only because CC does not have graduate students, so including them would give DU an unfair advantage. The goal of 1,500 donors was based on statistics from the same time period last year.
“We looked at the data from last year and 1,500 was still a stretch, but it seemed doable,” said Christensen.
She said the prize will be “bragging rights” and a trophy that will travel between schools every year. The winner will be announced before the puck drops at the first DU vs. CC hockey game on Nov. 8 in Colorado Springs.
“Athletics has been a good partner, but we’re trying not to make the focus athletics. We just picked that time frame because it’s a natural time for rivalry,” said Christensen.
Donors can make a gift of any amount to any part of the university, which may include athletics, an individual college or school, the Chancellor’s Innovation Fund or the University of Denver Scholarship Fund. The challenge does not track dollar amounts, only the number of donors.The challenge websitehosted by DU tracks the number of donors each week. As of Friday, Sept. 13, DU had 106 donors and CC had 339 donors. A mail piece about the challenge was sent to all undergraduate alumni a week before.
“This is our first big push to get annual gifts for this fiscal year. With homecoming in October, we’re expecting that to be a time when we’re really rallying alumni,” said Christensen.
The website also includes donation links and promotional videos for each school.
CC “went the viral video route,” said Christensen, with a video of two co-workers in a break room competing to drink the most hot coffee from their DU and CC mugs. DU’s video features clips of hockey games and interviews with students and staff.
“If you’ve ever been to a DU vs. CC hockey game, you know what a really good college rivalry feels like. This year we’ve extended that rivalry to the alumni challenge. By making a gift, you can help us beat CC, again” said Chancellor Robert Coombe in the video.
For more information, visit the alumni giving challenge website at www.ccversusdu.com.
