This year was the first year that the University of Florida (UF) ranked in the top 10 in US News & World Report. In order to keep that ranking, the University recognized that alumni engagement was important. The University of Florida Dance Marathon and UF Shands Healthcare is helping play an important role in that through its Dance Marathon Donor Drive page.

We talked with Mary Ann Kiely, Vice President for Development at UF Health to learn more about a best practice they implemented to learn more about alumni engagement with their Dance Marathon.

What is the best practice?

UF Health Shands added two checkboxes to a dancer’s donation page: One asking if the donor was an alumnus of the University of Florida and another asking if they were an alumnus of Dance Marathon.

As a result, they can now easily run a report of the Dance Marathon on an alum from the school.

What results did you see from implementing the best practice?

They have 816 UF alums who gave last year that they did not capture in our overall giving records because they had given less than $100. Now they are capturing them. They now have the donor and alumni information simply by adding two checkboxes.

How did you determine you needed to implement this best practice?

The university was striving to be in the top 10 on U.S. World News & World Report. They wanted to maintain it. They kept discussing alumni participation, but that’s really difficult with 52,000 students on campus.

The University came to the alumni and development office and asked how they could help. They realized that weren’t capturing information on the donors under $100 for the alumni participation. By adding the box, this would help increase their U.S. News & World Report rankings.

How do you think this could be best implemented in other markets and at other hospitals?

The change happened relatively quickly. Other hospitals and markets wishing to make a similar change can contact your Dance Marathon Manager or Daniel McKenna, Application Support Specialist, dmckenna@cmnhospitals.org, in the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals office to learn how to make a change to your Donor Drive page.

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If you have any Best Practices that would be helpful to your colleagues, please reach out to Stephanie Gosdis at sgosdis@cmnhospitals.org to schedule an interview with Jason Myers, Director, Content Management, CMN Hospitals.