Giving Weekend Nets $48K for Rams Athletics

Sports are a vital part of Bluefield College, so it’s important to provide the necessary support and funding for each team to pay for travel, equipment, scholarships, recruiting, and other needs.

To help provide that financial support, the college recently hosted an Athletics Giving Weekend, titled Rise Up Rams, to encourage alumni and friends to give to the athletic program. Supporters responded by donating more than $48,000 to BC student-athletes.

While alumni and friends can give to athletics anytime during the year, the Rise Up Rams weekend is designed to draw special attention to supporting BC student-athletes during an intense three-day fundraising campaign. The campaign is hosted primarily online through social media using the hashtag #RiseUpRams to draw more attention to the effort.

“Social media is big during Athletics Giving Weekend, because it allows the school to reach out to the students’ families and friends,” said Bailey Angle, BC’s assistant director of sports information who helped lead the social media campaign for #RiseUpRams.

Angle curated promotional videos for the social media campaign and went live on Facebook to help kickoff Rise Up Rams. He said Facebook was the most effective social media platform for the campaign.

“Most of our donors are middle-aged to seniors, and they make up most of Facebook’s demographic,” Angle said.

He also talked about how TikTok was a very effective social media tool for the campaign because it allowed student-athletes to create their own promotional video content during coronavirus quarantining. Angle added that it would have been impossible to raise as much money as they did without social media which allowed the student-athletes to directly connect with alumni and friends.

“It allowed the athletes to create their own content,” he said. “It felt like much more of a grassroots campaign, and I think that generated more donations than ever before.”

Angle said each team created its own promotional video to encourage fans to give to Rise Up Rams. Some, he said, were particularly creative, gaining lots of support.

“I was particularly impressed with men’s soccer’s idea of making a video in the format of (the NBC-TV sitcom) The Office,” Angle said, “and the big reaction we got from fans.”

Nicole Kaklis, BC’s director of alumni relations and annual giving and another key organizer for Rise Up Rams, spoke about where the money goes and how it benefits athletics.

“Gifts made to the Rise Up Rams campaign not only support student-athlete scholarships,” Kaklis said, “but they also directly impact our teams’ operational budgets.”

According to Kaklis, the fundraising campaign was highly successful with $48,085 in gifts from alumni and friends with contributions still coming in daily. She also spoke about how active the athletic teams were on social media promoting the campaign. The wrestling and women’s basketball teams, she said, were in competition for the top spot to raise the most money.

“I am very thankful for all who participated and made this a fun ‘competition’ between our teams,” she said. “The #RiseUpRams campaign not only raised money for Rams athletics, but it highlighted our amazing student-athletes and the good they do on and off the field and court.”

Anyone interested in giving to the Rise Up Rams campaign may still do so by visiting blufield.edu/RiseUpRams.