Calvin Cares Advocate Resources
Join Calvin Cares!
Calvin Cares is a weeklong campaign to support every student at Calvin University. Our goal is to have 1,000 participants make a gift the week of April 8–12, 2024. Donate now or learn more about becoming an advocate below.
Become an Advocate
Through social media, emails, and text messages, we’re asking you to spread awareness and invite your classmates and friends to make a gift. As an advocate, you can encourage your peers to give by offering a match or challenge.
Here's how you can get started:
Create an account
As an advocate, you can help spread the word about the campaign. But first you’ll need to create an account on GiveCampus, the platform we’re using to host Calvin Cares. To get started, visit the GiveCampus site and click on “Become and Advocate” under the countdown.
Once you’ve created your account, be sure you sign in before doing anything with the campaign. That way you can track your success and see who has responded to your asks.
Make a gift
While we’re asking you to actively promote this campaign to others, your social network will more readily respond to your request if you’ve already made a gift.
You can also create a match with your gift to inspire others to get involved. To create a match, go to the Calvin Cares campaign page and click on the "offer a matching gift" button under the countdown. This option is available as soon as the campaign is officially launched, so check back frequently if you don't see the option available!
Matching gifts are made on a per–donor or per–dollar basis. For example, you can say, “I will match up to $1,000 on a dollar-for-dollar basis for the next $1,000 that is donated by members of the class of 1999.” Or, “I will match $20 per donor from the class of 1999.”
Restricted matches can add excitement and urgency to a campaign, so consider offering a matching gift that is restricted to an affiliation group, a class year, a designation, or a list of specific donors by email address. If you do not choose one, the match will be available to everyone who makes a gift.
You also have the option to create a challenge. These are milestone-based (for example, if 50 people donate, I will give $500).
Upload a personal plea
A personal plea is a short video in which you explain why you’re excited about getting involved with the campaign and why others should support it, too. This can be a simple video that you record on your phone. Just make it short and to-the-point, and then share on social media, over text, or through email!
Share the campaign
Spreading the word about a campaign is one of your top responsibilities. Make sure you’re logged into your GiveCampus account, and then use the built-in sharing buttons (the ones that are located under the campaign video and on the advocates tab).
That way we can track the number of donors, dollars, and link clicks you inspired and celebrate your impact on the campaign.
When you share the campaign, be sure to write your own messages that will resonate with your network. Try to convey why you’re getting involved with the campaign and why others should get involved, too. The more personalized and authentic the case for giving, the more effective it will be.
Be sure to use #CalvinCares2024 when you share!
We encourage you to share the campaign link both on social media and over text and email. Sharing over social media is a great way to make sure your friends see the campaign, but direct peer-to-peer sharing over email, text message, and direct message within Facebook or Instagram often generates the most gifts!
Update your social media profile picture
Starting the week before the campaign, we encourage you to update your profile photo to help build awareness. You can leave it up for the duration of the campaign. Right click to save the photo and upload it to social media.
