VCU news

By Brian McNeill

Luke Divita and his teammates, all students at Virginia Commonwealth University, had been up for 24 hours, preparing a social media plan, a brochure, a flier and a photo slideshow for the nonprofit Autism Society Central Virginia.

"Nike makes brand advocates out of their [customers]," Divita, a senior marketing major, told the organization's leadership. "You guys have a lot of great testimonials from people who use your services and connect with each other. Make sure that they're part of your Facebook posts."

Rachel Hume, a junior communication arts major, presented the team's idea to run a campaign on Facebook in which families would post a photo of themselves holding a white board with the words "Autism is," followed by what it means to them.

"For example, 'Autism is courage,'" she said. "That way, it could let people give their own uplifting [message]."

The VCU students' marketing and PR services for Autism Society Central Virginia were delivered as part of VCU's annual CreateAthon, in which teams of students and professional mentors work around the clock for 24 hours to provide pro bono marketing services to Richmond-area nonprofit organizations.

The CreateAthon program connects the talent and insights of VCU students to nonprofits who need advertising and marketing work. It’s a great way for VCU students to engage in hands-on learning, service-learning.

"The CreateAthon program connects the talent and insights of VCU students to nonprofits who need advertising and marketing work," said Peyton Rowe, director of CreateAthon and an associate professor of advertising. "It’s a great way for VCU students to engage in hands-on learning, service-learning. Also, because CreateAthon is largely run by students in terms of the event production and support, the client relationships and strategic development, it’s a unique and transformational learning experience, helping to create advertising’s future leaders."

Rowe, a professor in the Richard T. Robertson School of Media and Culture in the College of Humanities and Sciences, added that the community as a whole benefits from CreateAthon.

"For the nonprofits we serve, providing strategic and creative work that tells their story effectively, passionately and creatively only helps them fulfill their missions, addressing critical needs in the Richmond community," she said.

In addition to Autism Society Central Virginia, this year's nonprofit CreateAthon clients included Beds for Kids, Inc.; C2Adopt; Dogtown Dance Theatre; Friends of the Lower Appomattox River; Ramp Access Made Possible by Students; Richmond Montessori School; Richmond Peace Education Center; Sacred Heart Center; and the Reach Out Center of Petersburg.

Including this year's CreateAthon at VCU, the program has provided an estimated $1.5 million worth of pro bono marketing services to 86 Richmond-area nonprofits over the past eight years.

Becky Boswell, executive director of Autism Society Central Virginia, said she is excited to implement the students' ideas.

"This is exactly what we asked for," she said. "We wanted to find ways to differentiate our organization as a local organization where the funds that we raise stay here in our community to help individuals with autism and families. And that's exactly what they did for us."

Boswell said she was especially impressed with the students' social media plan, as well as a new brochure design.

"One of the deliverables I'd asked for was a brochure because we don't have one," she said.
"We do so much, it's like, how do you fit all that into one brochure? But they did it."

Another team of students worked on behalf of Dogtown Dance Theater, and presented Heather Bailey, the organization's production and development director, with a new mission statement, a new logo, sticker concepts, business cards and more.

"We took the logo and we thought it didn't communicate dance enough, so we wanted it to show movement and show dance and better tell who you guys are as an organization," said Mike Rodriguez, a junior creative advertising student. "Dance is also very diverse, so we didn't want to show just one form of dance — we wanted to show many diverse types of dance."

Erin Smith, a senior strategic advertising major, presented the team's proposed new mission statement.

"What we did was we took some of the strengths from the current mission [statement] — an emphasis on the community and enlivening the community — but we wanted to just simplify it into something shorter," she said. "So our proposed mission would be: 'Dogtown Dance Theater enlivens the RVA community by providing opportunities to showcase self-expression.'"

Throughout the 24 hours, a team of students continuously streamed video of CreateAthon, shooting and editing videos and interviews as the event unfolded.

For many of CreateAthon's participants, the event provides an opportunity to work in a creative and strategic way alongside students from other disciplines.

"It's definitely useful," Hume said. "We're working in a team with people we didn't know very well. We all have different skills, and we all collaborated."

"Being able to pick up where another person on the team left off really created some fantastic results for us," Divita added.

CreateAthon was also a challenging test of endurance, but one that was truly rewarding, said senior strategic advertising major Buddy Stolze.

"I can't believe that we've actually been up for this long working continuously," he said. "I've had a 10-minute nap, but other than that it's just been great. I never thought we could accomplish the amount of things we did, and the quality of the work we did."

It was humbling, he said, to have the chance to work with creative teammates to benefit an important local organization.

"Presenting it was such a relief. [Autism Society Central Virginia's leaders] really seemed to like what we did," he said. "There were even some tears. It was great."

Feature image at top: Buddy Stolze, a senior strategic advertising major, presents marketing material his team developed for Autism Society Central Virginia.

Subscribe for free to the weekly VCU News email newsletter at http://newsletter.news.vcu.edu/ and receive a selection of stories, videos, photos, news clips and event listings in your inbox every Thursday. VCU students, faculty and staff automatically receive the newsletter.