VCU’s CreateAthon onCampus: Five Years of Satisfied Customers

By Mike Porter

Since 2008, CreateAthon onCampus has made a huge impact on area nonprofit agencies.

The numbers are impressive: 46 nonprofits in the Richmond area have received professional marketing materials and advice valued at more than $700,000.

This year’s CreateAthon, which concluded on the morning of March 16, will undoubtedly boost those statistics significantly.

“This has been a big year for CreateAthon, a huge year,” said Peyton Rowe, associate professor of advertising in the School of Mass Communications in the College of Humanities and Sciences at VCU, who is creator of CreateAthon on Campus and director of the project.

This year’s CreateAthon attracted 89 students from Virginia Commonwealth University and Virginia State University and 34 mentors, who put their collective creativity together for 24 hours to complete marketing and advertising projects for free for 12 area nonprofits.

Participants include undergraduate students from the VCU School of Mass Communications, VCU School of the Arts and VSU’s art and design program.

Rowe said the effort is growing each year.

“We’re seeing more returning team leaders and mentors,” Rowe said. “And some of our participants have been here since the start. They began as a team leader, come back as a project manager and then return as a mentor.”

Linda Venema, a business systems analyst for Dominion Resources Services, Inc., is a CreateAthon veteran, who returned as a mentor this year.

“I treat CreateAthon like my own kid,” Venema said. “I started with the first year and have wanted to come back just to make sure that it’s working. And I also come back because I like helping the students. I enjoy working with this age group.”

 This year’s nonprofit participants were Area Congregations Together in Service (ACTS); CARES Inc.; Chamberlayne Actors Theater; Greater Richmond Bar Foundation; New Visions New Ventures; Rebuilding Together Richmond (RTR); Richmond Giving Circle; Sportable: Richmond Adaptive Sports and Recreation; The New Community School; The West End Community Center (WECC); Unique Perception Services; and Virginia Advanced Study Strategies.   

The organizations were selected based on their resources and how well their needs matched the students’ expertise and the 24-hour creative window. All expressed satisfaction with the students’ efforts

“We didn’t know what to expect at all but we’re very pleased with what we’ve seen,” said Jennifer Stevens, chief operating officer of Virginia Advanced Study Strategies, after the student group completed its presentation.

A change implemented this year required the nonprofits to follow up with CreateAthon at VCU, explaining how they’ve implemented the ideas. Rowe expects to get a better idea by next fall of how this year’s ideas were carried out.  

Another student team was dedicated to creating a campaign to help CreateAthon at VCU explain its efforts to other colleges considering starting their own CreateAthon onCampus programs.

CreateAthon at VCU is based on the South Carolina advertising agency RIGGS’ professional CreateAthon network. Nationally, more than 75 agencies, three universities, one corporation and one club have participated in the CreateAthon network, serving more than 1,100 nonprofits with 2,500 projects valued at $15 million. 

The event itself was documented live through the CreateAthon onCampus blog, http://createoncampus.tumblr.com/, on Twitter @createathonVCU and Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/CreateAthonOnCampus.

For more information, visit http://createathononcampus.org/.