As part of our annual University of California, Davis Give Day communications strategy, we created a Last Chance to Give video to email out a few hours before Give Day closed. Our goal was to do something unique that might catch the eye of any remaining non-donors to encourage or remind them to participate in Give Day. In 2023, the worst of the pandemic had receded and filming had finally resumed. We felt this video would be a great opportunity to showcase our campus, faculty, and students again. UC Davis athletics had just debuted a new football “kickoff tee retriever” named Cori, who everyone was talking about. In addition to retrieving the tee during games, Cori was being trained by her owner, School of Veterinary Medicine faculty member Dr. Lisa Tell, to retrieve baseball bats. With her sweet disposition, Cori was rapidly becoming a campus star. We enlisted Cori to help us with this video. She delivered our coveted Give Day t-shirts to faculty, students, UC Davis Health system staff, and Chancellor Gary S. May. By visiting different campus locations like the student farm, the Manetti Shrem Museum, the prosthetics lab, Mrak Hall, and the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, we were able to bring our audience back to campus, with Cori as our enthusiastic doggy tour guide. The video was emailed to 348,091 recipients and posted on UC Davis social media. It became an instant classic at UC Davis.
From the Judges
The video creatively uses a variety of campus settings, populations, and community supporters in a way that is both informative and visually appealing. Excellent work in showcasing the vibrant community life.
