Vanderbilt University Dance Marathon Receives 2020 Partnership Award
Vanderbilt University Dance Marathon was awarded the Partnership Award at Dance Marathon Leadership Conference 2020. The Partnership Award recognizes the Miracle Network Dance Marathon organization and their respective partner that demonstrated the most collaborative and mutually beneficial partnership in the past year.
VUDM has a wonderful partnership with their athletics department and student athletes on campus. Two years ago at the beginning of this partnership, VUDM knew they were failing to engage a large part of campus: their student athletes. Previously, Vanderbilt athletics teams had attended the dance marathon event for a brief amount of time or had volunteered at the event, but had never been active participants in the event. VUDM knew that they wanted this relationship to evolve into something more and knew that they wanted to provide their student athletes with a meaningful way to give back to the local community.
Because of this desire, VUDM started working with the Student Athlete Advisory Committee on campus to educate the athletics teams about dance marathon and about how to get involved. They identified team captains from athletics teams and had them create team pages on DonorDrive. VUDM paired Miracle Families with the athletics teams to connect the teams closely with the cause and the local hospital. In its first year, this partnership inspired 9 athletics teams to make DonorDrive teams and two of those teams to dedicate games to benefit VUDM. They continued to improve the education of athletics teams and student athletes in the following year and in 2020, every single athletic team at Vanderbilt had a team for dance marathon and these teams raised $40, 788.75 for VUDM – doubling what the partnership had raised in its first year!
Check out an amazing video produced by Vanderbilt athletics about their partnership with VUDM:
Miracle Network Dance Marathon is an international movement, involving over 400 colleges, universities and K-12 schools across North America that fundraise for their local Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. Since its inception in 1991, Miracle Network Dance Marathon has raised more than $300 million–ensuring that no child or family fights pediatric illness or injury alone.
Learn more about Miracle Network Dance Marathon: