Strategy: Build and enhance enduring relationships with alumni, parents and friends of the campus.
Point People: Beverly “Babs” Sandeen and Pat Turner
Narrative Summary of Third Year Implementation Efforts:
Key objectives in 2005-06 included the strengthening of the campus’ strategic communications and marketing capacity to reach key constituencies including students, their families, alumni, campus friends and donors, and community and governmental leaders. Strategic enhancements were made to existing communication pieces that are sent to alumni, parents and friends of the campus.
Advances and Ongoing Programs Consistent with Strategy:
- Created UC Davis's first-ever marketing unit. This unit conducted a campus-wide communications audit, helped major campus publications contain more strategic messaging, created plans for improving development communications, and generated "The Buzz" newsletter with talking points and points of pride for all of us to use when we talk to constituents and give presentations.
- Established tools to assist in consistent UC Davis messaging and facilitate communications regarding UC Davis news, points of pride and distinctions. Examples include:
- Launched a broadcast Web site with downloadable video.
- Established the University Communications Web site, including many helpful links for news, resources and tools.
- Created Web site templates for use by the entire campus and taught several classes in developing and writing for Web pages.
- Continued efforts to advance the “UC Davis story”,
- Created at least 66 different story packages about UC Davis that were spotlighted on the home page.
- Produced more than 60 broadcast NewsWatch pieces for KVIE Channel 6.
- Mailed four issues of UC Davis Magazine to 185,000 alumni, parents and friends.
- Mailed 10 issues of the Aggie Family Pack newsletter to more than 15,000 UC Davis families.
- Distributed 7,000 copies of the Annual Report; 25,000 copies of the Facts Brochure.
- Produced 42 weekly issues of Dateline to 13,000 faculty and staff members.
- Handled more than 4,000 media calls; issued nearly 300 separate news releases to more than 3,000 journalists; and placed more than 3,500 stories about UC Davis in local, state and national news media.
- Taught workshops and classes on communications topics to more than 500 UC Davis staff and faculty.
- Continued the development and distribution of a regular newsletter to the 30,000 residents of the City of Davis entitled “Keeping in Touch.” (Ongoing)
- Mailed 30,000 Alumni Resource Guides and Aggie Xtra Newsletters.
- Emailed 14,000 Aggie Xtra digest e-newsletters.
- Completed the fourth year of Aggie Family Pack. All parents who provided e-mail addresses were enrolled. Based on parent feedback, it did result in the desired outcome of building stronger relationships between the campus and families.
- Increased coordination of communication tools between University Relations’ units; Development, University Communications and the Office of Alumni Relations. (Ongoing)
- Established practice of including parent information in our campus relationship tracking database.
- Increased Foundation Board members support of fundraising for the campus. Additional fundraising volunteer groups are also being created in schools and units.
- Reviewed School of Education credentials and degrees received to ensure all are/have been added to the campus database.
- Increased student focus of the Cal Aggie Alumni Association (CAAA and potential alumni outreach by reshaping the Cal Aggie Student Alumni Association; growing their volunteer board from 6 to 17 members, and attracting over 1,200 members; and focused on program development such as the Take An Aggie to Work student-alumni mentoring program.
- Received a CASE National Gold award for CAAA’s best practices in alumni relations for life membership campaign efforts. (July 2005)
- Received three CASE Awards in University Communications (UComm). In addition to Lisa Lapin’s Rising Star award, the UComm team was presented with two silver awards; one for the UC Davis 2005 Annual Report and a second silver in the Web sites or CD-ROMs category. (December 2005)
- Provided leadership for the Chancellor being honored by the Northern California World Trade Center and the State Business, Transportation and Housing Agency with the Northern California International Leadership Award and coordinated participation in the event with other campus stakeholders, including alumni, development, international programs and UC Davis Extension.
- Provided campus-wide leadership for the Governor's participation in the announcement of UC Davis as the first California Energy Fund "Energy Efficiency Center", including partnering with numerous academic, administrative and support units to assure that key academic, elected, donor, and alumni constituents were included.
- Developed and systematically communicated guidance to the campus community and candidates for elective office regarding participation in election activities, including endorsements, fundraising.
- Provided leadership to incorporate UC Davis’ federal priorities, such as continued funding for the Center for Medical Education, funding for the Advanced Environmental Vehicle Center and support for the American Competitiveness Initiative into the advocacy agenda for the Sacramento Metro Chamber’s 2006 Capital-to-Capital trip to Washington, D.C. in which more than 400 business, civic and education leaders from the greater Sacramento area lobbied for regional initiatives and programs.
- Led a community effort to create the “Good Neighbor Initiative” designed to improve relations between students and community members in single-family neighborhoods. The initiative was endorsed by the City of Davis, UC Davis and ASUCD. A series of block parties were organized throughout Davis in early October to give students and their neighbors a chance to know each other and to hand out information on the Safe Party Initiative, the Noise Ordinance, the Open Container Ordinance, and the Nuisance Abatement Ordinance.
- Laid the groundwork for the creation of a campus-wide speakers bureau to provide local civic and business groups with a means of securing campus speakers. The Bureau will promote wider engagement of the campus, consistent with the strategic plan, with communities throughout the region.
- Conducted the first survey of campus charitable giving, including volunteer hours, monetary and gift donations to community groups in the region.
- Expanded campus outreach into Solano County, by joining a number of chambers of commerce, sponsoring events, attending economic development events, and meeting with local government elected leaders. The efforts have paid off in a number of partnership opportunities in Solano County.
- Planned the first statewide conference on Town-Gown relationships, held on the UC Davis campus in October. The conference brought together city and county elected officials with campus leaders and staff from the UC system, the CSU and private colleges and universities in California.
- Strengthened working relationships with the City of Davis through outreach efforts conducted by Local Government Relations, which resulted in regular meetings with city staff, and a number of collaborative projects.
- Teamed with UCLA to become the League of California Cities’ first university campus members of the League’s “Partnership Program.”
- Established recurring meetings with County of Yolo staff to improve working relationships between the County and the campus.
- Served on the County’s Economic Development committee to assist the County with creation of a sound economic plan.
- Provided service as panelists and as facilitators at two consecutive League of California Annual Conference meetings.
- Participated actively across-campus in developing the City of Sacramento’s economic development plan.
- Served on a number of regional civic, business, and other volunteer leadership boards including: The Davis Chamber of Commerce, the Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce, the Sacramento Asian Chamber of Commerce, Woodland Opera House, Woodland Community College Advisory Committee, and the Yolo Basin Foundation, SACTO, Arts and Business Council, Sacramento Theater Company.
- Assisted with outreach efforts to the City of West Sacramento in planning for a potential new rowing facility.
- Communicated strategically with regional opinion leaders and other friends of the campus using findings of Hart survey research of public perceptions of UC Davis and analysis of UC Davis’s economic impact study. (Ongoing)
- Coordinated UC Davis’s second Alumni College in July 2005, a partnership between the College of Letters and Science, UC Davis Extension and University Relations Office of Alumni Relations.
- Worked to continue building Aggie Family Camp for July 2006.
- Developed and distributed the third UC Davis Alumni Calendar for Alumni Association members.
- Honored donors and alumni more visibly and regularly in various campus venues. (Ongoing)
- Redesigned UC Davis website to include improved pages for alumni, parents and friends; a new page for Business Partners and a home page link to facilitate private giving to the campus. (Winter 2005)
- Sponsored 158 regional and local alumni events around the world that were attended by 8,133 individuals.
- Amplified the impact of the Chancellor’s and Provost’s travel to Washington, D.C., by arranging meetings with selected members of Congress, key media, students, alumni and others to convey key campus messages and to cultivate strategic relationships. (Ongoing)
- Sponsored over 40 community events attended by more that 25,000 local opinion leaders and community members to raise campus visibility and awareness of the campus. (Ongoing)
Short Statement Plans For 2006-07:
- Develop and test consistent campus messaging and branding.
- Strengthen internal and external news-gathering relationships to improve the quality of our news and writing and to generate more enterprising stories that otherwise would not be told.
- Lead the campus in creating a unified presence through consistency on the Web by developing content standards for its 10,000 web sites, acquiring a content management system and providing training.
- Sustain and increase political, community and financial support for UC Davis by showcasing academic programs with elected officials and community opinion leaders.
- Increase participation by alumni in programs and in regional, special interest and prospective chapters and clubs.
- Increase UC Davis visibility nationally among peers by achieving recognition for excellence and use of best practices throughout University Relations programs.
- Strengthen the awareness, understanding and support for the university that results in tangible volunteer, donor and advocacy efforts on behalf of the academic enterprise.
- Enhance University Communications’ service to campus through effective leadership, revised policies, collaboration with the Communications Council, campus-wide staff development and technical support.
- Increase engagement with campus friends and community through special events, stewarding volunteers, staff development and training and improved campus-wide coordination in event planning and execution.
- Increase outreach to Solano County through continuation of existing relationships with local elected leaders and economic development officials and through creation of a Solano County engagement plan.
- Create a forum for bringing local elected officials and staff to campus for direct interaction with campus leaders and staff to promote relationship-building.
- Enhance working relationships with Downtown Davis Business Association and the Yolo County Visitors Bureau through participation in event planning and staff presence of boards. Convene meeting of local economic development officials to educate them about the campus and its operations to assist them in serving their communities and clients.