SOAR SCHOLARSHIP CAMPAIGN PROPOSAL
As senior writer for Illinois Institute of Technology Office of Advancement, I pioneered new messaging on the university's number of Pell Grant students and the role Illinois Tech was playing regionally in moving low-income students up the economic ladder.
This approach culminated in a successful scholarship fundraising campaign that ultimately garnered a $150 million gift. Famed tech entrepreneur Howard Tullman of 1871 later cited Illinois Tech’s high number of low-income students as his main incentive for joining the university.
CLEVERSAFE INITIATIVE FOR COMPUTER SCIENCE
Shortly after I began working for the Office of Institutional Advancement at Illinois Institute of Technology, one of our university trustees sold a startup that he had incubated at the university's tech park, employing students and alumni. The startup sale was the largest in Chicago history and created more than 80 millionaires in the region. In a meeting with my senior director and I, the trustee outlined a series of one pagers he wanted for the purpose of raising money to support the university's computer science department. I wrote and did initial layout for the one pagers, incorporating more pictures and new dynamic text elements that our graphic designer finished and executed. My senior director informed us that the trustee deemed the one pagers "the best marketing I've seen come out of Illinois Tech in the 11 years I've been affiliated with this university." The campaign ultimately established a new College of Computer Science for Illinois Tech.
"By the Numbers" One Pager
Thanks to the release of the new U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard, in 2015 Illinois Tech began to receive impressive educational rankings from The Brookings Institution, The New York Times, and other highly regarded sources. I compiled these for a one pager and asked our graphic designer to lay them out in dynamic text. Though our rankings appear in regular text in many online and print publications, this one pager was cited repeatedly by donors as the impressive evidence that compelled them to give. In fact, our board of trustees came to the unanimous conclusion at a meeting that "the rankings one pager is very important." It was subsequently put on the university's main web site but has since been taken down.
