Drexel University Crowdfunding Campaign 2017: Codebreakders

Case Study

Drexel University: Improving Alumni Engagement Online & Off

UI/UX Design

After the incredible success of its 24 Hours of Impact campaign in 2016, Drexel University sought to repeat its record-breaking achievement. To expand engagement, Drexel needed to make its 2017 campaign even more interactive both online and off.

UI/UX Design

New Year, New Theme

Drexel once again partnered with KDG to develop an engaging, custom theme. In 2017, Drexel students, alumni, family, and friends were expected to break the code and help unlock a mysterious 125-year-old secret hidden within a time capsule left behind by Drexel’s founder. With every donation, the Drexel community worked together to win different challenges, unlock complex codes, and break giving goals.

User research and personas
Custom theme development
Donor challenges & goals
On-campus events
"Coming Soon" page
Social media integration
24-hour support
$933,471 raised with 4,229 donors

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KDG won a Platinum Award from the AVA Digital Awards for Drexel's Day of Giving: Codebreakers.
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#Drexel24 was promoted heavily across social media. This active online presence not only attracted donors from 46 states, but also donors from 10 countries spread across 5 continents!
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The online campaign was also promoted offline. Codebreaker coffee sleeves, philanthropy facts, and 1,200 combination boxes were distributed across campus in the days leading up to the campaign.
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KDG had its 24-hour support team on hand to help during the campaign. The custom crowdfunding platform was active throughout the entire day, never once going offline despite the active traffic.

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Engaging Visuals
To engage donors, an entirely new crowdfunding portal, featuring an engaging steampunk design, was created by the team at KDG. It featured a variety of industrial and Victorian elements. Visitors were greeted by spinning gears, ticking pocket watches, and antique maps. Meanwhile, everything was bathed in muted versions of blue and gold, Drexel’s school colors.
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Friendly Competition
Friendly competition was waged between different campus clubs and communities. Sports teams, fraternities, sororities, student clubs, and academic disciplines competed against each other to see who could raise the most funds and crack the code faster. Unique, custom charts kept track of the donations in real-time. By the campaign’s end, alumni made up the biggest block of donors, while the men’s wrestling team came out on top among the campus’s clubs and teams.
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Hidden Clues & Bonus Codes
Giving didn’t only occur online. The event was promoted heavily offline, as well. Fourteen different events on campus encouraged students and faculty to get involved. Meanwhile, an interactive scavenger hunt on campus had students find hidden puzzle boxes that contained codes for bonus money to increase their impact.

"After our success in 2016, we had big shoes to fill. We needed to create a campaign that was fun without being too novel, and creative without being too complicated. We also wanted to tie in an important milestone for our University – the 125th anniversary. KDG accomplished all of this and more, and helped us raise the bar for success on Day of Giving."

Lizz Miller
Associate Director, Drexel Fund

Project Showcase

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An interactive map as the campaign continued to show the geographical range of donors.
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Loading animations between form steps helped create a cohesive theme.
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Built-in functionality lets users edit data at any point in their donation process.
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After donating, social share links were generated to keep the campaign going.

"We had a campus scavenger hunt... with puzzle boxes on campus that had codes inside that would allow $500 to follow students’ gifts — an awesome feature that KDG made which let us gamify the experience on campus."

Ivy Lane
Director, Strategy and Analytics