From the judges: This idea was creative and unlike any other of the majority of the engagement happening in the industry. The intentional focus they had on family services and honoring what their alumni were experiencing showed that they centered on the needs of their alumni versus making it about their own plans for engagement. This clever, meaningful idea perfectly pivoted to the circumstances in a way that best supports the audience, especially for a series that had not been planned or resourced in any way in the past. This distinctive and worthy application that’s centered around alumni needs is what really sets this apart.
Alumni UBC Summer Series
Category
Alumni Relations > Alumni Relations Pivot
Description
Award: Gold
Institution: The University of British Columbia
Title of Entry: Alumni UBC Summer Series
About this Entry: The alumni UBC Summer Series was developed as a way to virtually engage alumni during the summer months. While content was open to everyone, we focused on showcasing this program to alumni with young families, many of whom were trying to balance keeping their kids busy over the summer months, while working from home due to the pandemic. With so much educational content available at the university, we knew we could help to engage young people. We just had to share the wealth!
Rather than build events and content from scratch, we curated four weeks of programming and promoted it in an online calendar and via social media. This programming included a mix of existing UBC content from our athletics department, various faculties, and campus attractions (museums and gardens), as well as live performances hosted online from diverse children’s performers and local arts and science organizations. In addition to virtual events, we wanted to encourage families to take a break from their screens and get outside (physically distanced, of course) so created a scavenger hunt and associated contests. In addition to promoting health and wellness, the scavenger hunt also served to highlight our benefits and services partnerships through prizing and our social media channels as we engaged with participants through photo sharing and content promotion.
Over the four week series we saw great engagement results: 6,800 views on the Summer Series webpages; 3,000 views of the live performances; 20,000 views of the Summer Series posts on Instagram.