Wesleyan University

The Challenge

Wesleyan University was embarking on its largest-ever fundraising campaign, aiming to raise $600 million to secure its future and maintain its leadership in liberal arts education. Yet Wesleyan lagged behind competitors in endowment per student, which impacted its ability to offer need-blind admissions, modernize facilities, and attract a diverse student body.

Mission Minded was engaged to craft a campaign strategy that would communicate the campaign's importance in a distinctly "Wesleyan" way, re-energize existing donors, inspire new alumni contributions, and convey the university’s relevance in solving global challenges through intellectual agility and creative problem-solving.

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The Insight

During the discovery phase, we uncovered a unique challenge. Wesleyan graduates are fiercely anti-establishment and cynical about institutional engagement. Wesleyan is seen not as an institution that shaped its students, but as the environment where they became themselves. As a result, many alumni do not feel beholden to support the university. Additionally, Wesleyan’s previous campaign theme, “This is Why,” allowed donors to define their own reasons for supporting the school. We realized the new campaign needed to embrace this independent spirit, while still motivating alumni to take responsibility for ensuring Wesleyan’s future impact on the world.

The Journey

Knowing that Wesleyan’s alumni wouldn’t respond to a traditional campaign, we proposed the audacious theme: “This is not a campaign.” The idea was tongue-in-cheek, reflecting Wesleyan’s iconoclastic nature.

The theme emphasized that Wesleyan is not just an institution. Nor are its students, faculty, and alumni just ordinary participants in higher education. Instead, Wesleyan is a launchpad for transformative change. Its community members are visionaries whose potential defies categorization. By rejecting the conventional “campaign” concept, we reframed the initiative as a bold movement to solve the world’s most pressing problems. Everything was tagged with: “This is not a campaign. This is Wesleyan.”

The Impact

Since its launch in October 2023, “This is not a campaign” has achieved 68% of its $600 million goal as of May 2024. The campaign has generated unprecedented attendance at events, surpassing previous Wesleyan fundraising efforts. Alumni have expressed excitement about the opportunity to break down financial barriers for students and expand Wesleyan’s impact across fields like science, the arts, and business. The campaign is successfully engaging Wesleyan’s defiantly nonconformist community, ensuring that the university’s legacy continues to evolve through the transformative power of its graduates.

If I’m honest, I’ve always been a skeptic about working with consultants, even after partnering with the so-called ‘best of the best’ from big New York firms. But Mission Minded really gets us. It feels so good to be perceived exactly the way we want to be seen.

Michael Roth, President, Wesleyan University