Introducing the D-SIP Class of 2020!

Michigan Ability Partners
Audrey will create a social media and mini-event campaign that will create awareness of the work done by Michigan Ability Partners and bring aboard new donors. Additionally, she will create an effective and standardized donor acknowledgement and retention policy. Michigan Athletics
During the summer, Alex will develop an integrated communications strategy that will create a unified and seamless brand experience for consumers across all marketing channels, resulting in increased brand awareness and giving for both current donors as well as prospective benefactors. Office of University Development: Annual Giving & Student Philanthropy
Nisreen’s project plan will provide university Annual Giving (uAG) and Student Philanthropy (SP) with research and recommendations that will be implemented in winter 2021 and subsequent years. She will benchmark compelling philanthropy week programs that are successful with other higher education peers, propose and present a philanthropy week plan that the Student Philanthropy Team will implement in March of 2021. Dobson Intern: SOS Community Services
Jill will help collect impact stories and prepare them for use in SOS’s marketing materials. Stories will be collected from current and former SOS board members, staff, volunteers, program participants, and donors. In addition, Jill will assist with an annual assessment of SOS fundraising performance metrics. This project will involve analyzing and summarizing data related to amount of funds raised over the last fiscal year, number and type of donors, gifts at each giving level, gifts by solicitation, etc. School of Public Health
While participating in D-SIP, Sydney will be involved with working on key projects including the development of an alumni-to-alumni mentoring program as well as providing discovery donor visit support. She will also help create the team’s annual report that summarizes fundraising and alumni engagement outcomes. Lastly, Sydney will organize a “book of best practices” for alumni engagement efforts across the School of Public Health. Office of University Development: Campaign Strategies & Initiatives
The goal of Ena’s project plan is to help create and execute a plan to educate the broader development community on the new collaborative fundraising policies and procedures. She will benchmark with other universities planning or executing themebased campaigns, including goals, staffing, campaign structure, and volunteer structure. Ena will also help create a draft structure for a future theme-based campaign at U-M, including work with the PDA team and Graham DoD. Institute for Social Research
Throughout the summer, Adrian will analyze giving trends to categorize donors. He will benchmark with peer institutions to learn how best to grow our donor audience. Adrian will also strategize on improving ISR’s overall stewardship processes. Dobson Intern: Corner Health
During D-SIP, Trevor will research and benchmark effective fundraising ideas and samples, and help the Corner Health development team apply those ideas to the Corner annual and social media campaigns. Also, he will investigate and recommend potential grant funders for these purposes, and Trevor Johnson lead funding application processes. UM-Dearborn: Alumni Engagement
Dina will create a plan for transitioning the alumni engagement website to become more compelling and engaging. She will also research ways to convey messages of alumni success, resources and benefits to alumni. Lastly, Dina will focus on increasing engagement with and giving to the university. School of Music, Theater & Dance
Throughout the summer, Samantha will lead a stewardship project aimed at stewarding two important groups of donors: donors who give annual gifts of $500-$1,000 and donors with planned gifts. This project will involve repurposing select student profiles featuring 2019-2020 SMTD scholarship recipients sent with personalized messages of thanks and appreciation for gift impact (or anticipated impact in the case of planned gifts). Samantha will partner with the intern in the Office of Planned Giving to analyze SMTD planned giving data. The data collected will be shared with SMTD gift officers to equip them in planned giving discussions. UM Dearborn: Digital Marketing
Madison will work on expanding existing digital communications efforts. She will develop an expanded plan across multiple channels and create a systematic process for implementation. These channels include website, social media, and email marketing for UM Dearborn’s Institutional Advancement. Center for the Education of Women
Carolina will work throughout the summer to will assist in event planning strategies, solicitations, and communications for the 50th anniversary of CEW+ awarding scholarships and the 150th anniversary for women's acceptance to UM. She will also conduct research on potential impact stories and best practices, as well as develop a comprehensive timeline for events. Dobson Intern: The Ark
This summer, Violet will help expand sponsorship and grant opportunities through corporate and foundation relations, an area with significant unrealized potential for The Ark. Key development activities that will move prospects through and beyond the first half of the donor relationship cycle, will include identification, information, awareness/understanding, involvement and cultivation/solicitation. Violet will research new ways to search for foundation and corporate support opportunities to increase the number of prospects. She will also conduct market research on sponsorship benefits and donor recognition, evaluate The Ark’s current benefit and recognition programs, and recommend updates to increase the programs’ attractiveness. Office of University Development: Planned Giving
Throughout the summer, Gabby will research and analyze the data that will support and guide the collaborative work among Major Gift Officers, Regional Gift Officers Annual Gift Officers, and Planned Gift Officers. The use of this data will enable UM to increase the number of gifts from this sector of donors. Gabby will also identify trends, consult with Regional Gift Officers and suggest opportunities to enhance donor cultivation strategy. School for Environment and Sustainability
During D-SIP, Chloe will lead strategic marketing initiatives as well as update current roster and timeline of marketing priorities and tactics for SEASnet, a new online platform for SEAS alumni. Through marketing— and sometimes direct communication with alumni, Chloe will focus on increasing user sign-on and engagement. She will be charged with identifying alumni who wish to have a greater involvement with the school and increase the overall usage of this site. Rackham Graduate School
Julia will spend the summer creating a comprehensive graduate student scholarship, recipient engagement plan and student ambassador program at the Rackham Graduate School. Her goal will be to collect content and engage graduate student scholarship recipients as ambassadors of Rackham, as well as to educate students about the need for philanthropy, give them opportunities to participate in philanthropic events on campus with current Rackham donors and alumni, and celebrate the many ways donors and volunteers enhance the Graduate School. Michigan Medicine: Annual Giving
During D-SIP, Tara will be working on a benchmarking effort to compare the current Michigan Medicine grateful patient annual giving program to several peer institutions. The benchmarking will include reaching out to peer institutions about their grateful patient annual giving strategies, collecting and evaluating mailings from those institutions, and creating a report of outlining their findings and making recommendations about strategies and tactics to implement to enhance the Michigan Medicine Annual Giving program. Office of University Development: Major Gifts
Tanuja will assist with development of the survey instrument and data collection platform. She will help develop and execute a communication strategy for gathering and aggregating data as well as creation of a formal report/dashboard for the development community. Michigan Medicine: Events
During D-SIP, Brianne will be benchmarking against other medical school/peer institutions as it relates to medical school reunions, fundraisers and donor stewardship events. Her work will create a point of reference and recommendations on strategies that will improve Michigan Medicine’s future events. This experience will also provide Brianne with first-hand knowledge and experience in the execution of fundraising and development events. School of Information
This summer, J will review School of Information’s current engagement with students and collaborate with other UMSI units. He will make recommendations and implement strategies to further integrate MADS students into the broader UMSI and UM community. The purpose of this engagement plan is ultimately to increase the likelihood of philanthropic engagement with the school among this new group of students & alumni. Office of University Development: Marketing & Communications
Keri will work with the Digital Marketing team within OUD to re-imagine the M-Bassador program. She will evaluate email ambassador platforms, benchmark the ambassador program against peer universities, research successful ambassador programs in both the non-profit and for-profit space, and develop a comprehensive marketing plan for engaging current M-Bassadors and recruiting new MBassadors. College of Engineering
Throughout the summer, Mia will have a broad exposure to fundraising operations and constituents at the College of Engineering and across the University. She will create a set of assets (digital and print marketing materials) to communicate fundraising priorities internally and across S/C/Us & OUD. Mia will also develop a communications outreach strategy by mapping cross-campus opportunities to share Engineering priorities. Michigan Medicine: Mental Health, Neurosciences & Cardiovascular
Melissa will partner with major gift officers from the Mental Health, Neurosciences, and Cardiovascular teams to explore creative new ways to leverage current donors and database tools to transition individuals into the major gift prospect pool. She will also will utilize benchmarking and strategic planning to establish a new mechanisms to leverage warm prospect pools for major giving.