History was made on April 7, 2022, when Marian's entire campus came together for a day of celebration. #DayfortheKnights2022 and the weeks leading up to it were overflowing with fun, festivities, and pride. We promised food, games, prizes, and surprises, and we think the least surprising thing to come out of the event is...that we're doing it again on Thursday, March 30, 2023, to be exact!
Before then, though, we'd like to recap some of the most exciting moments of #DayfortheKnights2022:
With your help, the Marian University community raised $112,897.97 from 544 unique donors. There were 24 unique on-campus events on April 7, including but not limited to: Opening night of Marian University Theatre's Pippin, a live performance by the faculty/staff brass band, Excalibur, a massively popular iPad giveaway, a marathon reading of the first book of Psalms, and free Chick-Fil-A!
Of the unique donors, 230 were faculty or staff, 206 were alumni, and 42 were current students. Additionally, 140 of those were first-time donors!
The fund designations with the most donors were: Alumni House, 74; Knightro's Pantry, 74; 2013 Still Society, 59; San Damiano Scholars for Church Leadership, 45; and M-Club Endowed Scholarship, 31.
Beyond dollars, #DayfortheKnights brought memories we won't soon forget. The Leighton School of Nursing and The Exchange provided hilarious TikTok content, leaders from the IT department found themselves on the wrong end of numerous pies (and their promotional material was mass-flagged as a phishing scheme), Dr. Adrianna Ernstberger commanded the quad with her megaphone and drone camera, and students raced around campus to get their hands on limited edition #DayfortheKnights jerseys.
In the end, the coveted Sr. Norma Rocklage, OSF, Ph.D. '60 Bedazzled Bucket Hat MVP Award was awarded to the Student Success and Engagement team for their commanding campus presence, humorous social media, innumerable giveaways, impressive donor numbers, and sheer enthusiasm. Congratulations!
This all begs the question: How are we going to make next year even better?! (AND WHO will win that bedazzled bucket hat?!) Watch this web page for more information coming soon on how to start planning your program promotions for #DayfortheKnights23.
Each year, the Marian University Knights community comes together for a day of giving to raise money for student scholarships and to broadcast its school spirit to the world. Wherever you are, you are invited to join the party—whether virtually through university social media channels or in-person through on-campus events and activities throughout the day.
A day of giving is a one-day, 24-hour fundraising opportunity designed to bring people together to give toward a cause close to their hearts. Similar to Giving Tuesday, where organizations promote their organization and ask for donations, Day for the Knights is Marian University’s dedicated day of giving.
Gifts—of any size—are driven by social media and email communications. These gifts go toward the general student scholarship fund or to specific existing funds within the various schools, programs, or organizations. Days of Giving are known for their energy and fun and often include lots of friendly competition between campus groups to generate the most dollars or number of donors and various other goals.
Days of Giving are also great days of school spirit. Campus groups create their own party environments and incentives and use this opportunity to raise scholarship dollars while also promoting and celebrating their own favorite programs.
Days of Giving are for everyone—alumni, faculty, staff, current students, parents of students, and community friends.
Campus groups are encouraged to compete for the highest numbers in categories like the following:
There are a few goals: fundraising, participation, and social. For the first two, we are hoping to raise $100,000 for student scholarships and have 100 percent participation from faculty/staff and the campus community in some form. Most importantly, DFTK is a day of celebration and pride for Marian University and its mission. Thus, we will have numerous events/activities around campus that day to engage our community.
There is a level of participation that will work for everyone (faculty/staff/students/parents/alumni/community)!
Plenty! While we are all working towards one goal for the day, we will have multiple challenges going as well, all of which are accompanied with some sort of prize. We vehemently encourage friendly competition, rivalry, and wanting to win.
Competitions will be based on percentages of participation and celebration of effort and creativity. Even the smaller teams can compete fairly against larger ones.
While we will be sending out the official categories shortly, expect them to include things like, “most new donors,” “most current student donors,” and the coveted, “best-in-show,” which is an overall presence and participation award.
There are a few ways—social media, email, calling, texting. It really depends on the audience you’re trying to reach.
We are sending out a digital toolkit—this will include social media samples and designs, prompts for spotlighting your faculty, staff, students, or alumni, letter/email templates that include language you should use in your ask, etc. These will likely be used for your wider audiences. If you need a list pulled for those contacts, please let us know sooner than later.
If you are close with alumni or campus donors, it may mean more to reach out to them directly, instead of sending a mass communication. For these, we encourage you talk with them as you normally would, explain what DFTK is, and ask as you would any other project.
Otherwise, watch the MU and MU-Alumni social media pages for promotions—share what you see, and spread the word to your personal social networks. If your team has its own MU/MU-related social networks, we encourage you to share there, as well as create your own content for those pages.
If you don’t have social media, you probably know someone who does. We ask that you encourage your colleagues/peers to share what they see to they’re social networks (there’s no way all of you don’t have social media).
If you are having trouble creating the social media promotion yourself, we’re happy to help. However, we are creating a lot of the base social media promotion for this event too—so we may not have a ton of time to make what you want a reality. So before coming to us, we ask that you look at your team and see if anyone has social media/design experience—you never know, your student employee, boss, or woman who has an office next to yours may actually be a much better designer than you initially think. If none of that seems possible, then we can talk.
You do not need to be the person running social media + promotion either. If you want to recruit students (digital ambassadors) to help with yours, that would be completely fine.
Drew Gaidosh
Advancement Communications Specialist
dgaidosh@marian.edu
(317) 955-6205
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