Award: Gold

Institution: California State University San Marcos

Title of Entry: CSUSM Taste for Student Success 2019

About this Entry: The Taste for Student Success event at California State University San Marcos (CSUSM) is an alumni engagement event held in October 2019. The event had previously been hosted by a college within the University with little focus on alumni engagement and a net loss for the event. In 2018 the event was transferred to the Office of Alumni Engagement with a goal of engaging and bringing alumni back to campus.

In year two, we made additions to further engage our alumni and feature alumni owned businesses. With a relatively young alumni base (CSUSM was founded in 1989) we needed to create a social media following that spoke to our population. Our Alumni Engagement Specialist created a social media campaign to drive ticket sales and build excitement for this food and beverage tasting event. We enlisted alumni, selected from the Association and Chapter Boards, to participate in exhibitor visits as social media promotions leading up to the event. New this year, alumni owned exhibits had a custom sign identifying them as alumni and all alumni attendees could be recognized with a custom reusable patch stating “Proud CSUSM Alumni.”

With zero budgeted dollars allocated to it, the entire event is funded by ticket sales, sponsorships and auction sales. With an alumni engagement focus and marketing strategy, the 2019 Taste for Student Success exceeded expectations. In two short years, we increased ticket sales with 475 attendees (up 20%) and doubled the number of vendors participating while garnering net proceeds just shy of $7,000.