Marksmen Week 2020
Client: St. Mark’s School of Texas
Program Design | Strategic Communications | Campaign Design | External Affairs & Development
Design Challenge: How might we bring the St. Mark’s School of Texas alumni community together during a global pandemic?
The Scenario
In the 2019-2020 school year, the St. Mark’s School of Texas campus and community was impacted by both a EF-3 tornado and a global pandemic. Our development and communications teams had paused all fundraising operations twice for extended periods of time. Funds from the St. Mark’s Fund provide critical resources for the school, funding 11 percent of the annual operation budget. These fundraising pauses left us well behind our goals as the school year came to a close in May 2020.
To adapt and meet our goals, we needed to pivot.
The Solution
Marksmen Week 2020: A celebration of the St. Mark’s alumni community and its ongoing support of our school that included a robust integrated communications campaign, a series of virtual events, and an alumni giving challenge.
My Role
Ideate: I initiated the Marksmen Week idea and internal planning with senior leadership based on inspiration of peer institution giving days.
Manage: I managed senior leadership, lead volunteers, and staff/intern relationships to ensure fundraising asks were aligned with St. Mark’s values and the current environment.
Execute: I led the collaboration with internal alumni relations and communications teams to conceptualize, develop, design, and execute a comprehensive campaign strategy.
Steward: I ensured that donor participation in the campaign was stewarded through new and unique efforts that celebrated our community’s support during these ongoing challenges.
The Design: Marksmen Week 2020
We deployed an integrated communications strategy that centered on community voices and community-created social media content. We designed a new Marksmen Week splash page and utilized a peer-to-peer messaging platform. We leveraged various platforms and customized and targeted email communications.
01 Communications Campaign
We hosted a series of virtual events delivering relevant conversations around topics such as mental health, leadership, and resiliency. We highlighted alumni leaders and popular faculty members on topics such as American Literature and space exploration.
02 Virtual Events Series
200+ community members attended Marksmen Week events
We leveraged a $50,000 challenge gift and designed an alumni giving challenge to rally donor participation in the St. Mark’s Fund and celebrate the long-standing strength of the St. Mark’s alumni community.
03 Alumni Giving Challenge
It would be an understatement to say that the last year has thrown a few curveballs at the School we all love. But what defines St. Mark’s is our response to those challenges. The community pulled together after a devastating tornado, followed by a global pandemic, in ways that are truly inspiring.
- St. Mark’s Alumnus
The Impact
Marksmen Week 2020 not only helped our development team reach our fundraising objectives during a unique school year, but it also challenged our team to embrace new communications and fundraising strategies to engage our alumni community.
Campaign Fundraising: The campaign spurred generous donor activity including more than 900 alumni gifts and $480,000 in alumni giving during the month of June, playing a critical role in helping generate more than 11% of unrestricted funding to support the school’s operating budget.
New Donor Stewardship Opportunities: The first-ever Philanthropy Impact Report, a mailed stewardship piece and complementary webpage, was produced to highlight key development initiatives and steward our donor community in new ways during unique fundraising times.
Continuous Improvement: As the pandemic continued to impact the 2020-2021 school year and St. Mark’s Fund with restricted travel and a closed campus, Marksmen Week 2020 evolved into a new alumni campaign in following years.
