Case Study: Drexel University

Improving Alumni Engagement Online & Off

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.

Going Global

#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!

Special Swag

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.

Round-the-Clock Support

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.

screenshot of Drexel's 2017 giving campaign

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

KDG... helped us raise the bar for success on Day of Giving.

Lizz Miller,
Associate Director, Drexel Fund

Solutions

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.

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.

Engaging Visuals

To engage donors, an entirely new crowdfunding portal, featuring an engaging steampunk design, was created by the team at KDG.

Custom Charts

Unique, custom charts kept track of the donations in real-time.

Interactive Form

As the user fills out the donation form, a code is created based on the data entered.

Seeing the World

An interactive map showed the geographical range of donors.

Small Details, Big Impact

Loading animations between form steps helped create a cohesive theme.

Simple Updates

Built-in functionality lets users edit data at any point in their donation process.

Social Sharing

After donating, social share links were generated to keep the campaign going.

Drexel University logo

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.

Lizz Miller,
Associate Director, Drexel Fund

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

By Kyle David | June 28, 2017

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