Success in holding Scholarship Breakfast — the Jindal School’s annual major fundraiser — online in 2020 led the Dallas Fort Worth chapter of the American Marketing Association to recognize it at the chapter’s annual gala in October with its Event Marketing of the Year Award.
The basic challenges for JSOM external relations and corporate development teams, which market and execute the breakfast, involved transitioning to a digital format because of COVID-19, said Dr. Diane McNulty, JSOM’s associate dean for external relations and corporate development. The teams aimed to move online without compromising the event’s brand — its dual missions related to thought leadership and fundraising, McNulty said. “And we made it a goal to preserve outcomes associated with both missions.”
To reinforce the two missions, the teams wrote a case statement announcing that Fred Perpall, CEO of The Beck Group, would speak at the virtual event on the critical role of scholarships for increased and shared prosperity in Dallas.
“We were not certain we could generate our usual level of sponsorship commitments for an online event, given the likelihood of a smaller audience and less tangible sponsor benefits,” McNulty said. “Despite these concerns, our sponsorships far exceeded all fundraising goals.”
The development team made the case that scholarships were needed more than ever, and that with 100% of donations going to scholarships, the return on investment for sponsors was never better.
In all, the breakfast brought in over $110,000 in sponsorship revenue, resulting in net income of $109,000 – the largest single-year amount ever, and more than double the target amount of $50,000. The net income went entirely toward scholarships.
“It was enormously gratifying to see such support for our students during such a difficult time,” McNulty said. “And we are enormously proud that our colleagues in the American Marketing Association recognized our efforts.”
The Jindal School earned two other AMA DFW awards at the gala. Junior Jasmine Nguyen was named 2021 Collegiate Marketer of the Year, and students and faculty of the undergraduate program in marketing won the Corporate Social Responsibility Marketing Award.
