From 22nd May to 10th June, we reached out to DCU alumni to reconnect and raise funds for the University’s Access Scholarship Programme. The telethon campaign got off to a flying start with our ambassadors, who included inter-county footballers Jonny Cooper, Paul Flynn and Sarah Rowe together with DCU Access students, hitting the national press to raise awareness of the telethon amongst DCU alumni.
Over three weeks, our team of student callers spoke to 700 DCU graduates with 306 people pledging over €85,000 to support Access scholarships in the coming years.
This support comes at a critical time with demand for the DCU Access Programme continuing to grow year on year. In 2016/17, there were 1,285 Access students enrolled at DCU, a substantial increase from 424 in 2012/13.
However, Liz Logan, Development Manager with the DCU Educational Trust, who coordinated the telethon, is keen to stress that it is about much more than just raising funds:
“It was incredible to hear the conversations between our student callers and alumni. We try our best to match the student callers and alumni by their courses and this has led to great discussions and plenty of career advice!
“It is an exciting time to be in DCU and the telethon is a great opportunity to keep alumni up to date with all of the latest developments here. While we are obviously delighted with the response to the Access appeal, with over 40% agreeing to make a gift, every single call was valuable to us for the connection it maintains between the University and its graduates,” Ms Logan said.
