Small Team, Big Momentum: How Carroll College Built a Giving Day Strategy Designed to Last

About Carroll College

Carroll College is a private, four-year Catholic college located in Helena, Montana. Known for its close-knit campus community and strong culture of service, Carroll emphasizes personalized learning, student connection, and meaningful engagement both on and off campus.

Five years later

Five years ago, Giving Day at Carroll College was an idea the team was trying to figure out how to make real.

The opportunity was obvious. Departments across campus had fundraising needs. Students needed support. Alumni wanted meaningful ways to stay connected. But like many advancement teams, Carroll was operating with limited time, limited staff, and plenty of uncertainty about what it would actually take to launch a successful Giving Day.

For years, the idea had stayed mostly in the planning stage. The team knew Giving Day could become something meaningful for the institution. The challenge was figuring out how to build it in a way that felt sustainable for a small team.

So instead of trying to build a massive campaign all at once, Carroll took a different approach.

They started where they were.

The first Giving Day was intentionally modest. A smaller number of causes to support across campus. A lean team. Simple goals. The focus was less about creating a perfect campaign and more about creating momentum the institution could build on over time.

That mindset would eventually shape everything that followed.

Today, Giving Day has become an established part of the Carroll experience. Departments actively apply to participate. Board members fund matching gifts. Student ambassadors help spread the word across their own networks. Athletics teams create internal fundraising competitions. Donors now expect Giving Day to arrive each year.

And over the last five years, the results have steadily grown alongside the strategy itself.

The story of Carroll’s Giving Day is about what can happen when a team commits to steady, intentional growth year after year.

Building buy-in before building scale

In the beginning, one of Carroll’s biggest priorities was not scale. It was participation.

The team understood early on that Giving Day would only succeed if campus partners believed in it too.

At first, that meant starting conversations across campus about what Giving Day could become and helping departments see fundraising as something collaborative rather than siloed. As causes began participating and seeing results, momentum started building naturally.

That shift changed the dynamic.

Departments that once operated independently around fundraising began working more closely with advancement. Campus leaders started seeing Giving Day as an opportunity to rally their own communities. And over time, participation grew beyond what the team originally imagined.

Some of the earliest momentum came from causes that immediately embraced the opportunity. During Carroll’s first Giving Day, the campus pep band — which had been at risk of dissolving due to lack of funding — mobilized students, alumni, family members, and supporters around the campaign and successfully raised enough funding to continue supporting the organization for years to come.

Stories like that helped Giving Day feel personal across campus.

Now, rather than recruiting participation, the advancement team often finds itself helping departments strategically navigate how to participate most effectively.

Growing one layer at a time

As Giving Day matured, Carroll resisted the temptation to overhaul everything at once. Instead, the team approached growth incrementally.

Each year became an opportunity to refine one more part of the experience.

The team has intentionally focused on one new strategy each year:

• Stronger campus participation
• Intentional ambassador engagement
• Deeper stewardship efforts, using Gratavid for personalized video engagement
• Matching gifts

Rather than creating operational overwhelm, this strategy allowed the team to gradually build confidence and consistency year over year.

That consistency became especially important as staffing evolved over time.

Like many advancement teams, Carroll experienced transitions and role changes throughout the last five years. But because Giving Day had been built intentionally — with repeatable processes, campus partnerships, and shared ownership across teams — the program continued growing even as staff responsibilities shifted.

What started as a new initiative eventually became part of the institution’s operational rhythm.

Even as participation and fundraising totals grew significantly, the operational model remained manageable because the team focused on layering improvements over time instead of trying to implement every idea at once. 

That steady approach helped Carroll grow Giving Day without losing the sense of connection and collaboration that made it successful in the first place. That pacing also made Giving Day sustainable for a small team.

Turning ambassadors into advocates

One of Carroll’s biggest areas of evolution has been ambassador engagement.

Over time, the team realized that Giving Day became significantly more powerful when fundraising stories were being shared by the people closest to each cause.

Student ambassadors, athletics teams, campus leaders, and supporters all began playing a more active role in spreading the word and encouraging participation within their own networks.

In 2025, Carroll engaged 407 ambassadors.

In 2026, that number grew to 528.

And the team views the growth as more than a numbers story.

That intentionality changed the way ambassadors participated.

Instead of simply sharing links, many became active storytellers and advocates for the causes they supported. Athletics teams introduced internal competitions. Coaches gamified fundraising participation among students. Campus groups developed their own social engagement strategies and outreach approaches.

One cross country coach even created an internal leaderboard and challenge structure for student participation, helping the team significantly outperform previous years.

The growth in ambassador engagement also expanded Carroll’s reach beyond traditional donor audiences. Many ambassadors connected the institution to parents, grandparents, family friends, and community supporters who may not have otherwise engaged directly with Giving Day.

Expanding stewardship alongside fundraising growth

As Carroll’s Giving Day continued evolving, the team also recognized that donor stewardship needed to grow alongside fundraising success.

In recent years, stewardship became one of the team’s strategic focus areas. They wanted to ensure they were thanking donors, and thanking them well. To create more personalized donor experiences, Carroll introduced Gratavid into its Giving Day strategy.

The impact was immediate.

During the 2026 campaign:

• Every donor received a Gratavid thank-you from the causes they supported
• Personalized Gratavids were sent to seed donors, business partners, and donors who gave $500 or more

The additional personalization helps strengthen donor connection while still remaining manageable for the team operationally. Over time, that intentional focus on stewardship has become an important part of building the lasting donor relationships and recurring participation that continue fueling Giving Day growth year after year.

The same pattern that shaped Carroll’s overall Giving Day strategy continued here too: introduce one new layer, learn from it, refine it, and continue building.

Creating a Giving Day culture

Perhaps the biggest transformation over the last five years has been cultural.

What once felt like a new initiative now feels embedded into the rhythm of the institution.

Donors anticipate Giving Day. Departments prepare for it. Campus partners actively want to participate. Board members contribute matching gifts to encourage momentum across causes.

And internally, Giving Day has strengthened collaboration across advancement and campus teams in ways that extend beyond fundraising totals.

That includes stronger collaboration with athletics, student groups, advancement services, academic departments, and alumni engagement teams — all contributing to a more connected fundraising effort across campus.

Today, the annual giving team continues looking ahead toward future refinements:

• More ambassador training
• Expanded social engagement support
• Additional campus-wide participation strategies
• Potential in-person Giving Day experiences
• New ways to help causes collaborate rather than compete for attention
  

Five years ago, Carroll College was trying to determine whether a small team could realistically build a successful Giving Day.

Today, they’ve shown what’s possible when growth is approached intentionally, relationships are built consistently, and each year becomes an opportunity to refine rather than reinvent.

The result is more than a successful Giving Day. It’s a fundraising strategy designed to last.

Start where you are. Build intentionally. Then keep building.

Solution spotlight

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