Colorado State University lands six CASE awards for communication, fundraising

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Colorado State University has received six awards from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education for its communication and fundraising efforts, including Grand Gold for “State Your Purpose — The Campaign for Colorado State University.”

CSU won the Grand Gold in the 2017 CASE District VI Institutional Awards category “Fundraising Programs: Comprehensive Campaigns.” CSU’s $1 billion fundraising campaign, launched in February, is expected to be completed by 2020 to mark the 150th birthday of the university.

“This award is one of the top honors in our field, and is a credit to our overall branding efforts put into action,” said Tom Milligan, CSU vice president for external relations. “While the aim of our communication efforts is not to win awards, it is always nice to have external validation of the quality of our work and be recognized by our peers in the field.”

In addition, “Bison: Preserving an Icon” — a joint effort between the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and the Division of External Relations to publicize the return of a Yellowstone breed of bison to Northern Colorado — received Gold.

And CSU’s fundraising team landed a Gold award for “CSU Day of Giving – Love Your State,” an April 21 effort that resulted in 1,974 gifts from 43 states totaling $127,245.

CASE also awarded CSU a Gold for its recently redesigned home page in the category “Complete Institutional Websites,” a Silver in the “Excellence in News Writing: General News Writing” category and a Silver for the university’s “How a Place Matters” advocacy campaign, which featured a PBS-aired documentary celebrating Fort Collins’ selection by the Smithsonian Institution as one of six “Places of Invention.”

The award for news writing was based on an entry of five stories generated by CSU’s public relations team: “Rare WWII propeller salvaged from CSU research tunnel finds a home,” “Joel Berger fights to preserve unknown animal species,” “Halo effect: Alumna wants more women in video game industry,” “Center for Protected Area Management takes the stage at World Ranger Congress” and “OT students use CAM as example of animals’ therapeutic effects.”

The awards will be presented in December at the CASE V & VI Joint Conference in Chicago.

The latest round of honors comes on the heels of the Division of External Relations being named Colorado PR Team of the Year by the state chapter of the Public Relations Society of America last spring. In addition, in September the division’s Creative Services team won the Judge’s Choice award at the 2016 University and College Designers Association Design Competition for best in-house design team.

CASE District VI includes Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.