The Mark Dombroski Foundation Fun Walk
Case Study
The Community Partner
The Mark Dombroski Foundation began after Mark unfortunately passed in March of 2018 on the SJU Men’s Rugby trip to Bermuda. Mark’s family and friends felt it was important to maintain his legacy. Being inspired by Mark’s passion for athletics and education, the foundation’s mission is to support organizations that promote youth education, athletics, safety, and well-being. While supporting other organizations through funding, The Mark Dombroski Foundation started their own project in their local community that supports the youth. The foundation is creating a playground which will be known as ‘Mark's Park’, an accessible playground for the kids of all abilities and ages to come together in Mark’s hometown. Although the park has not been created yet, the foundation continues to support and raise funds by hosting events that bring the community together to be active and healthy. Through their pursuit of supporting the youth, they are able to fulfill Mark’s legacy by touching other’s hearts and helping them experience all the things Mark was passionate about.
Challenge
The purpose of the walk was to serve as a memorial to Mark. We wanted to do this fun walk over creating a video because we felt it would be the best way to actively engage the entire campus community to raise money for Mark’s Park and maintain his legacy at SJU. Additionally, since this would have been the semester he would have graduated, we felt that having an active memorial would be more fitting and better at bringing people together to honor his life. All of these factors led us to creating our design question which was: how can we design and host an engaging virtual walk/run event this Spring that 1) involves the entire campus community, (including all athletics), 2) serves as a moving memorial to Mark in the semester he would have graduated, and 3) raises money for Mark’s Park, his legacy?
The overarching design question for The Mark Dombroski Foundation is how are we going to incorporate Mark’s legacy and bring his story to others through our event. This design question came from our golden circle analysis. As we brainstormed and thought how we can reach out to those stakeholders. The first group of stakeholders that comes to mind is the friends and family of Mark. The second would be the community at Saint Joseph’s University, the students and the faculty. Third would be those who are being helped by Mark’s Park as is it a handicap accessible park. We communicated to our stakeholders by creating engaging social media content and promotions for the walk. By encouraging our stakeholders to get involved in any way they could, whether it be attending the walk or just a donation, we kept in mind the foundation’s mission. We were able to raise funds and awareness for Mark’s park to continue his legacy.
Strategic Thinking
Throughout the semester, we have worked directly with Mark Dombroski’s family to figure out the logistics of broadening our reach to the SJU community. We used social media to plan an in-person walk during a pandemic that was safe and successful to all participants. We researched the best possible online donation platforms that were easy for the user to sign up for a ticket or to make a donation. We also researched and based our decision off of how much the organization would get charged per each donation transfer from using different platforms. Luckily, we were able to use our school’s ticket website which was easy for all users to sign up on SJU Tickets.
The organization already had a number of sponsors so we created Venmo boards for the rugby team to use as an additional contribution to fundraise prior to the event. Coaches of other SJU Athletics teams were also contacted about getting their players involved by spreading the word and posting on social media. A template about the event was also posted on Facebook which targeted SJU parents, and it had all the necessary information about donating and participating virtually. We also scheduled a Chipotle fundraiser as another opportunity for donations.
The group has also done social media takeovers on the BSocial Instagram accounts to get the word out to the community leading up to the event. The posts included background on the Foundation, how to participate and be a part of the community, what to expect at the walk, Why We Walk, and other important information and reminders leading up to the event.
We created a t-shirt design to incorporate the logo, sponsors, and the park into the event. With the help of BSocial we were able to get the shirts for free so that students were able to make a donation and get a shirt with their ticket purchase. The shirts and food vendors that are advertised attract the student body and add an incentive to attend the event. The design of the t-shirt was something that we spent a lot of time on. We wanted the color and design to be cohesive with the Foundation, yet stand out from their usual colors and designs. We decided to make them a vibrant blue to match the blue of their website and because they had never used that color for a fundraiser before. The logo and front of the t-shirt were important to us because we wanted to showcase the accessibility of the park within the picture.
At the walk, we decided to create multiple stations along the way to help engage our walkers. With each station serving as a memorial for Mark, we decided to reach out and collaborate with the BSocial video team for Station 2: The Pictures & Video Station. The video team was a great resource for the walk because they made it possible for us to document people’s experiences with Mark, their reason for walking, and why they overall came out to support the Foundation.
The Results
The Mark Dombroski Fun Walk was a big success raising over 15,000 dollars with tickets, donations, and sponsorships. We sold virtual and in-person ticket options on SJU tickets and ended with a total of 81 tickets sold. Each ticket, virtual or in-person, was $15, creating a revenue of $1,215 in tickets alone. We sold 30 tickets the day of the event which added another $450 to the total for tickers coming out to $1,665. The men’s and women’s rugby team fundraised $1,500 dollars and the athletic department matched this amount. This donation allowed the athletic team’s to fundraise on their own and encourage them to come out to the walk. As of right now, with the sponsorships and donations, The Dombroski Foundation has raised $15,000 dollars to go towards Mark’s Park.