From the Nominator

UC Davis, like other University of California campuses, faces a structural deficit in core funds, which are the primary financial resources supporting its educational mission. Left unresolved, the deficit continues to compound over time. Campus leaders wanted new ideas and perspectives to solve this budget challenge, so our internal communications team sought to engage employees broadly, including those not usually involved in budget planning. FOA Communications developed a strategic communications campaign, called “IDEA$ at Work,” to engage UC Davis employees in identifying opportunities for savings, efficiencies, and revenue generation to help resolve budget challenges. Our audience was defined as all 32,000 employees across UC Davis and UC Davis Health, including faculty, leadership, clinical and non-clinical staff, administrative staff, and frontline employees. Our main objective, set by the UC Davis Revenue Generation and Institutional Savings Task Force, was to collect 1,000 employee ideas, while increasing employee awareness and understanding of the budget challenges. As part of our strategic communications plan, we worked closely with the task force to understand perceptions of the budget challenge and potential obstacles to participating in the campaign. We applied what we learned to make key decisions about the campaign, from the creative concept and messaging to the selection of messengers and channels. By the end of the fiscal year, we far exceeded our goal, gathering nearly 2,000 employee ideas.

From the Judges

This was a great campaign that generated awareness and understanding of a challenge shared by many universities. It was great to see the engagement of front-line staff in generating solutions, the compelling messaging and assets, and the use of a proven change management framework. Kudos to UC Davis on solving this challenge and doing it collaboratively with their community.