YouTube channel helps For All We Call Mizzou raise funds
Journalism students created a space for alumni to post videos.
Published Sept. 8, 2008
For the past eight years, the For All We Call Mizzou campaign raised $973 million. With its goal of $1 billion becoming a reality, MU graduates, faculty and students are working hard in a combined effort to push the campaign closer to completion.
One such project is the newly-launched YouTube channel named "For Mizzou" that has been created specifically for donors and alumni to share their reasons for giving back. Convergence journalism students Steve Sliker, a senior, and Carla Schaffer, a junior, created the channel in May, but it wasn't launched until a week ago.
"We really didn't want to get the word out about it too soon," Silker said. "We wanted a place where people could view a wide array of videos and decided to wait until the fall when we could get more content on."
The channel was conceived in an effort to effectively communicate the cause behind For All We Call Mizzou.
"We wanted to take advantage of the new social media trend that's out there," University Development spokeswoman Beth Hammock said. "We need to be a leader in communication here at Mizzou, to show people that we're communicating in new ways."
Most of the videos on the channel are one to five minutes long and contain graduates expressing their reasons for wanting to donate to MU and their hopes for the school's future.
"It's all about being part of what we were and what we can be," 1960 MU graduate Darlene Johnson said in a video she posted on the YouTube channel.
"They're giving back because MU gave them so much," Sliker said. "Mizzou gave these people priceless experiences which they will never forget. Whether the donors experienced things through their fraternity or sorority or school, it was all the Mizzou experience."
She believes the reason people are so willing to give is because they attribute their success to MU.
"People just love this university so much and credit all their success to it, and they want to continue that through us as students right now," Silker said.
Sliker and Schaffer launched the site out of the newly built Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, a project that was funded with money raised by For All We Call Mizzou.
"RJI has been unbelievable, it's a state-of-the-art facility," Sliker said.
Now that the channel is running, those that are involved with it are working hard to get the word out.
"We are telling our donors about it in a couple different ways," Hammock said. "We have a newsletter that goes out to the Jefferson Club members, which are our major donors. We also do presentations by word of mouth and included it in the e-mail letter that goes out to all of our alumni members."
The campaign is also offering an opportunity to win two tickets to Homecoming for anyone who submits a video. Hammock encouraged students to spread the word on to parents and friends.
"Hopefully people will start sending (videos) to each other," Hammock said. "It would be great if students would add their own videos, or send the link to families and friends. We want it to be a general Mizzou site for people to connect with and look at."