Running Head: INCREASING BRUSSELS CHARITY DONATIONS AMONG STUDENTS

Increasing Brussels Charity Donations among Students

Shelby Pigott
Obeid Mkina
Makayla Carroll
Greiby Zambrano
Bradley Bean
Salt Lake Community College

INCREASING BRUSSELS CHARITY DONATIONS AMONG STUDENTS

Increasing Brussels Charity Donations among Students

On Tuesday morning, March 22, 2016, there were terrorist attacks at Brussels Zaventem
Airport and the Maelbeek metro station in Brussels which took the lives of at least 34 people.
The terrorist group ISIS has claimed responsibility for the incidents. (Austin, 2016
The families of those killed and injured in this tragedy are in need of support, and we can
assist by using this communications campaign to increase SLCC student donations to the
Brussels Attack Fund by connecting to students with the proper channels and using the right
emotional connections to convince them to donate. In the words of Margaret Mead, Never
doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the
only thing that ever has. (Wikiquote, 2016)
Purpose and Objective
The purpose of this communications campaign is to increase and generate monetary
donations among SLCC students to support the victims of the recent Brussels bombings. We will
be using the channels that will be most effective in reaching students, focusing on internet
communication and social media. This campaign will influence SLCC students willingness to
donate money by appealing to emotion as well as logic. The greatest factor for many students is
money. We have chosen a donation cause which has a minimum donation of only $1, so it will
not be cost restrictive to students, allowing more of them to donate without really affecting their
finances. The campaign will be run within two weeks of this current semester in order to
capitalize on the emotions that come from the attack being fresh in the mind of students, and also
to coincide with tax return season where many have at least a little extra cash.
Audience

INCREASING BRUSSELS CHARITY DONATIONS AMONG STUDENTS

In organizing an effort to do crowdfunding to provide some funds for the victims of these
terrorist attacks from SLCC students, it is important to determine the audience to whom this
effort will be directed so that our communication campaign can target that audience
appropriately. Here are the characteristics of the SLCC students who are likely to respond
positively to a request to contribute to a fund for the Brussels terrorist attack victims, so these are
the characteristics that we will be attempting to influence among students:

The person has the financial ability to contribute some amount.

The person has some school spirit and would feel pride that the students from

SLCC organized an effort to help people in Brussels.

The person is looking for some way to personally contribute to the overall war on

terrorism.
The violence of terrorism around the world makes the person feel helpless and

contributing gives them something that they can do.

The person understands that such random violence could strike anyone and feels

fortunate that they were not directly involved as a victim of terrorism.

The person wants the world to be a more peaceful place and wants a way to

contribute to that goal.

The person is interested in demonstrating that there are a lot of good people in the

world, despite the evil demonstrated by the senseless violence of ISIS.

The person is an optimist and feels that even a little contribution will make a

difference in both an individuals life and in the cause.

The person believes that anyone can change the world
The person cares about others and wants to help.

Demographics

22% of students enroll directly from high school (Salt Lake Community College,

2014).
57% are between the ages of 18 to 24 (Salt Lake Community College, 2014).

INCREASING BRUSSELS CHARITY DONATIONS AMONG STUDENTS

The median age is 24 (Salt Lake Community College, 2014).

21% are first-generation students (Salt Lake Community College, 2014).
69% identify as White, Non-Hispanic; 12% as Hispanic, Latino, Spanish; 2% as
Black or African American; and 4% as Asian, Asian American, or Pacific Islander.

7% are international students (Salt Lake Community College, 2014).

Just over 50% of students are female (Salt Lake Community College, 2014)

Psychographics

41% chose SLCC because of affordability considerations (Salt Lake Community

College, 2014).
29% work full-time; 45% work part-time (Salt Lake Community College, 2014).
58% of SLCC students report that they have had at least minor financial

difficulties while attending school (Salt Lake Community College, 2014)

Women are much more likely to donate to charitable causes. (Womens
Philanthropy Institute, 2015)
Audience Analysis

Our audience is relatively young and many have concerns about finances. Most of our
audience will not have donated to many causes before, so we are working with a group that is
new to donating, meaning that we will have to really make them feel comfortable in a donation
and make the path to donation very simple and easy to follow. A slight majority of our audience
is women, which is good because whether in general or broken down in specifics, women are
much more likely to contribute to causes. We will really need to focus on the low minimum
donation for this cause as a high number of SLCC student report having problems with finances.
Messaging Goals
Keeping in mind our purpose and objective and also in the demographics of the Salt Lake
Community College students that we are targeting, we have set the following messaging goals:

INCREASING BRUSSELS CHARITY DONATIONS AMONG STUDENTS

Think

Understand how they can help

Understand how the funds will be used
Increase knowledge about the attacks

How these fund raiser will change the life of some of those people.
Feel good about helping others
Sympathize and Empathize with victims of these attacks
Desire to donate
Tragedies can happen to anyone

Donate
Share the Facebook Page with others, influencing them to donate

Feel

Do

Key Messages
The main takeaways we want our campaign to leave with our audience are:

Donating is easy We want to make the link to donate visible and easy to access

in all of our communications

Anything helps, even if it is only $1 We want to focus on the very low minimum

donation in order to draw in more people who wouldnt normally donate

Donations will really help the people affected by this attack
Channels

We have selected the following channels to best reach and influence students to be more
willing to donate to this tragedy that has happen in the world. Through research we have found

INCREASING BRUSSELS CHARITY DONATIONS AMONG STUDENTS

that over 96% of students use Facebook daily (Martin, 2009), so by using this channel we will
be able to reach the majority of students at Salt Lake Community College.

Facebook
o Facebook will be by far the most effective form of communication among
students. Through this channel we are able to connect with students
quickly and easily. Students are often on Facebook at least a couple times
a day, and to be able to get them to donate would be only a couple clicks

away.
Video/YouTube
o Video is a way to get students to connect emotionally to the attack
effectively. Videos are becoming very popular on Facebook, and videos
help get emotion involved with a situation through sound and picture.

Once their emotions are involved it will influence them to donate.

Articles
o Articles will be posted on our Facebook page so that we are able to reach
students that enjoy reading or are uninformed about the attacks and to give
them more details quickly. Through well written articles, students are able
to get more information on a situation, and as they get more information
that would encourage them to want to donate to help people that have been

wounded in this attack.

Email
o Email is a channel that almost everybody uses in some capacity today, in
fact we know that all SLCC Students have an email address as one is
assigned by the school. While email is not as effective a channel as
Facebook will be, this will allow us to catch those who could slip through

INCREASING BRUSSELS CHARITY DONATIONS AMONG STUDENTS

the Facebook cracks. According to Business Insider, 98.4% of people

check their email at least once a day. (Rosoff, 2015)

Website
o A website is a good way to get to contact college students because when
students are wanting information it is best to have it all one place. Our
website has all our links and information in one spot. In todays world
websites are very common and very easy to access. We didnt initially
plan on using a website, but we did find it the most convenient way to link
our student created articles to the Facebook page and have them able to
access other content without returning to the Facebook page.
Tactical Plan

We want our communication campaign to be organized and effective, so we will focus on

getting the right communications out at the right times.
Who (Audience)
SLCC Students

What (Message)

How (Channel)

Donating is easy
Donating really helps the

Facebook
Articles on

victims
Any amount helps

Facebook
Website with

When (Timing)
Final Edition before
April 29

articles
connected
Video
SLCC Students

Donating is easy
Donating really helps the
victims
Any amount helps

Email
Video
Website with
articles
connected

Final Edition before

April 29

INCREASING BRUSSELS CHARITY DONATIONS AMONG STUDENTS

Conclusion
By generating the desired emotional response among students through the use of the most
effective channels, and by focusing on the ability to make a donation of only $1, we will be able
to inspire and assist SLCC Students to donate to the Brussels Attack Fund.

INCREASING BRUSSELS CHARITY DONATIONS AMONG STUDENTS

References
Austin, Henry. (2016). Brussels Attacks: Timeline of the Events in the Belgian Capital.
Nbcnews.com. Retrieved http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/brussels-attacks/brusselsattacks-timeline-events-belgian-capital-n544221
Rosoff, Matt. (2014). People either check email all the time, or barely at all. Business Insider.
Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/how-often-do-people-check-their-email2015-8
Salt Lake Community College. (2014). SLCC Factbook 2014-2015. Salt Lake Community
College. Retrieved from http://www.slcc.edu/about/factbooks/fact-book-2014-2015.pdf
Wikiquote (2016) Margaret Mead. WikiQuote. Retrieved from
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Margaret_Mead
Womens Philanthropy Institute. (2015). Studies Examine Men Vs. Women In Giving. Nonprofit
Times. Retrieved from http://www.thenonprofittimes.com/news-articles/studies-examinemen-vs-women-in-giving/