CASE has announced the winners of its 2020 Platinum Awards, which recognize the best-of-the-best programs and practices in educational advancement globally.  

North Carolina State University won Best Article of the Year for “Can Sweet Potatoes Save the World?” from its NC State Alumni Magazine in winter 2018.  The story took readers from the sweet potato fields of eastern North Carolina to northern Uganda, with stops along the way in cutting-edge laboratories, food testing labs, and roadside markets.  

“Author Bill Krueger masterfully presents a complex story in a compelling way, focusing on people rather than facts and statistics, and incorporating telling details, infusing the main narrative with a sense of global humanity and interconnectedness,” the judges say.  

Metropolitan State University of Denver won Best Practices in Alumni Relations for its MSU Denver Mug Club. The Mug Club reinvents engagement and donor acquisition by placing a premium on the donor experience, and motivating alumni and donors to return to campus to network and engage with alumni relations and each other in conjunction with campus partner, the Tivoli Brewery Company.  

California State University, Chico won Excellence in Photography for Photographing Unprecedented Disaster—Covering the Camp Fire.  The images are part of a story depicting the devastating impacts of the Camp Fire to the town of Paradise and neighboring communities, as well as its effect on the people and programs at the university. 

“It went beyond the expected institutional imagery, and it was clear that the photographer really worked to get out to the scene, find stories, and report on an event that had a clear impact on their community,” the judges say.  

Michigan State University won Best Practices in Communications and Marketing for Spartan Good Will. The nominator described it as “an institutional-level holiday greeting and related campaign [that] shared messages of good will and reflected what it truly means to be a Spartan in a way that was appropriate for the season and, more important, for the time.” The holiday greetings resulted in video and feature content that contributed to the comfort and joy of the season. 

Florida International University won Best Practices in Diversity Programming for Bystander Leadership Program: From Insight to Action. BLP focuses on teaching a five-step bystander intervention procedure (notice the event, interpret what is happening, lead by taking responsibility to intervene, decide how to react, and then act) and provides practice using active intervention behaviors in response to examples of gender and race bias. 

The nominator described the one-day, interactive educational workshop as “a program aimed at engaging faculty in discussions to enhance knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors about issues related to diversity and inclusion, and to move them to take action.”  

University of Oxford won Best Practices in Fundraising for The Transformational Impact of the £3 Billion Oxford Thinking Campaign. The Oxford Thinking Campaign is the largest and most successful fundraising campaign for higher education in Europe, having raised £3.3 billion from more than 170,000 donors after publicly launching in May 2008 with a target of £1.25 billion.  

The nominator says “the campaign has raised ambitions for fundraising at Oxford, and has inspired other higher education institutions in the U.K. and across Europe. It has also led to greater professionalisation of fundraising at Oxford, enabling us to improve best fundraising practice and to share it with our peers.”  

Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey won for Best Practices in Digital Communications for Marketing Automation for Tec Review Newsletter. The Tec Review newsletter started in 2015 with an audience of 300 people, and it now has more than 21,000 subscribers. 

“They didn't take the typical one-size-fits-all approach to creating content for their email newsletter. The innovation of letting users choose what and when Tecnológico de Monterrey communicates with them took this project to the next level,” the judges say.  

Finally, Miami University won Best Practices in Advancement Services for Qualitative Portfolio Review: Fundraising Focus and Precision. The nominators describe this project as “a serious shift in philosophy, and one designed to allow development officers to focus on a significantly smaller number of prospects, each of whom would be solicited for a major gift within three years.”  

The end result is more consistent and strategic prospect engagement with deliberate moves, shorter solicitation cycles, and larger asks. 

For more information on the judging process, visit the CASE Platinum Awards section of the CASE website.