THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY RECEIVES 2021 PARTICIPANT STEWARDSHIP AWARD

“BuckeyeThon’s stewardship flourished in the 2020 Dance Marathon Year. Two new committees, Team Member Strategy and Team Relations headed stewardship of BuckeyeThon participants. In 2019, our organization established a committee titled Team Member Strategy solely focused on 3 main pillars of our organization: recruitment, fundraising, and stewardship. When committee members were added to Team Member Strategy in 2020, it experienced growth for the first time. Previously, BuckeyeThon had lacked in ways to steward our team members, donors, and Ohio State community. This affected our retention rates every year. The stewardship coordinator of Team Member Strategy created a comprehensive stewardship plan that pinpointed areas we could incorporate stewardship in many of our events like our CarnOval, Fashion Show, Day of Miracles, and even during the Dance Marathon. We also began to use social media through our marketing committee to make appreciation posts for our outstanding demographics. Another thing the committee did was give incentives to our team members not only to reward their fundraising efforts but also to push fundraising. After the Dance Marathon, based on their fundraising amounts, they receive major incentives called Miracle Milestones that are our way of saying thank you for their hard work and our main way to retain our Team members as well.

For a year that felt isolated and distanced, stewardship of our team members needed to expand to foster closeness while still being apart; media became a great catalyst of growth in this time. One way BuckeyeThon achieved this, was by creating personalized videos for our top ten fundraisers. 10 individuals from our Leadership Team were tasked with thanking these Team Members personally for all their hard work this past year. Additionally, BuckeyeThon worked closely with Team Captains to identify and recognize outstanding Team Members on our social media. The Team Captains were given access to a form where they were able to nominate Team Members and this information was able to be used to recognize Team Members on our social media who had gone above and beyond.

The second committee to influence the stewardship of BuckeyeThon was Team Relations, which oversees the Team Captain program for BuckeyeThon. Team Relations extended stewardship from managing the Team Captains to supporting their personal growth both in and out of the organization as student leaders. The Team Captain Program implemented professional and personal development into the Team Captain education program via programming with different departments from the university. This included a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion presentation on the topic of “Fostering Inclusive Organizations and Spaces” and a leadership workshop on strengths led by the senior coordinator of student leadership at Ohio State. Team Captains were spotlighted on social media. To express gratitude for the commitment of Team Captains, personalized Team Captain water bottles and t-shirts were distributed before the virtual dance marathon. BuckeyeThon General Body members wrote personalized cards distributed to Team Captains during the virtual dance marathon. Team Captains from each demographic received e-cards from their demographic liaison and Executive Team Captains of that demographic.”