All In for Starkville

A Participation Campaign to Grow the SCF Endowment Fund

Prepared for Starkville Community Foundation

1. The Big Idea

Most fundraising campaigns chase big checks. This one chases big participation — because a community foundation's real power isn't one large gift, it's thousands of people who feel like owners of the endowment.

The mechanic: Local businesses, schools, health clinics, churches, and civic groups each become a "Giving Team." Every person on that team — employee, teacher, staff member, congregant — is invited to give any amount between $25 and $1,000 to the SCF Endowment Fund. What we measure and celebrate isn't the dollar total. It's the percentage of people on each team who participate.

A $25 gift from someone who's never given before counts exactly as much toward the team's participation rate as a $1,000 gift. That's the point — it reframes giving as joining, not donating, and it turns every workplace into a recruiting engine SCF doesn't have to run itself.

Why this matters for the endowment specifically: an endowment is a perpetual machine — the principal is invested, and only the earnings are granted out each year to partners like J.L. King Center, Starkville Strong, Habitat for Humanity, Friends of the Library, Helping Hands, and the Innovative Educator Awards. A bigger endowment means a bigger, permanent, inflation-resistant funding stream for those partners — forever, not just this year. Participation is the story: the more Starkville households and businesses have a stake in the endowment, the more durable that funding stream becomes, because it's protected by community will, not just committee goodwill.

2. Campaign Name & Identity

Primary name: All In for Starkville Tagline options:

  • "Every gift grows the future."

  • "$25 or $1,000 — you're All In."

  • "100% is the goal. Not 100% of dollars — 100% of us."

This sits alongside (not in competition with) your existing giving circles:

  • 100 People Who Care and Club 1000 = recurring individual giving circles for larger, ongoing commitments.

  • All In for Starkville = a time-boxed workplace/organization participation drive that funnels new, first-time, and small-dollar donors into the endowment — and can graduate participants into Club 1000 or 100 People Who Care afterward.

3. How It Works (Mechanics)

Step 1 — Recruit Giving Teams. SCF recruits businesses, schools, clinics, churches, and civic clubs to sign on as a Giving Team. Each team names one internal Champion (an owner, principal, office manager, HR lead) who runs the internal push.

Step 2 — Champion gets a toolkit. SCF provides: an intro email/flyer template, a QR code + custom giving link unique to that team (so gifts are automatically attributed), a countdown poster, and a suggested 3-week internal communication plan.

Step 3 — Team members give $25–$1,000. Every gift, one-time or monthly, routes through a team-specific donation page. Suggested tiers: $25 / $50 / $100 / $250 / $500 / $1,000 / Custom — with $25 prominent so it never feels out of reach.

Step 4 — Live tracking. A public leaderboard on the campaign page shows each team's participation percentage (not dollar totals, to keep smaller organizations competitive with larger ones). Example: "J.L. King Center Staff — 82% In" / "XYZ Health Clinic — 41% In."

Step 5 — Recognition tiers unlock.

  • 75%+ participation → Silver Circle: the org's logo and a thank-you shoutout goes into SCF's newsletter (one placement) and one dedicated social media post across SCF's channels.

  • 100% participation → Gold Circle / "All In" status: a featured newsletter spotlight (with photo/quote from the Champion), a dedicated social media feature and inclusion in a closing "All In" video or graphic recap, a physical "100% All In" window decal for their storefront/office, and first invitation to the campaign's closing celebration as an honored team.

Step 6 — Individual recognition. Every donor — regardless of amount — gets a personal digital "I'm All In for Starkville" badge/certificate they can post to Facebook/Instagram, plus an optional profile-picture frame. This is what turns a $25 gift into a social act, not just a transaction.

4. Why This Structure Works

  • Removes the guilt gradient. Nobody feels embarrassed giving $25 when the whole campaign is built to celebrate that gift equally with a $1,000 one.

  • Peer pressure does the recruiting. Once a team hits 60–70%, the remaining holdouts feel the pull — social proof is doing what a mail appeal never could.

  • The incentive is visibility, not discounts. Giving SCF's newsletter/social spotlight as the reward costs SCF nothing financially but is genuinely valuable to small businesses and nonprofits who want local visibility — and it keeps the campaign entirely mission-aligned (no gift-card sponsorships to manage).

  • It builds SCF's donor pipeline. Every first-time $25 donor is now a known, thanked, cultivatable person SCF can invite into Club 1000 or a legacy conversation next year.

5. Website Structure (Squarespace Landing Page)

Suggested page: /all-in-for-starkville — linked prominently from the homepage nav and the "Leave a Legacy" endowment page.

Section 1 — Hero

  • Headline: "All In for Starkville"

  • Subhead: "$25 or $1,000. One gift or a whole team. Let's grow the fund that grows our town — together."

  • CTA buttons: [Give Now] and [Sign Up My Business/Organization]

Section 2 — Why the Endowment Matters Short, plain-language explainer (draft below) plus the existing "What Happens to Your Money" flow graphic already on your site — reuse it here, it's a strong visual.

Section 3 — How It Works Three or four-step visual (Recruit → Give → Track → Celebrate), mirroring Section 3 above but written for a general audience.

Section 4 — Live Leaderboard Embed or manually update a simple participation table/progress bars by team name, sorted by % participation. (A simple Squarespace table block or embedded Google Sheet/chart works fine without custom development.)

Section 5 — Champion Wall / Recognition Logos and photos of Silver and Gold Circle teams as they hit their thresholds — this section grows over the campaign and becomes the social proof engine.

Section 6 — Give / Join Donation block ($25/$50/$100/$250/$500/$1,000/Custom, one-time or monthly — matching the format already on your Leave a Legacy page) and a separate "Sign Up Your Organization" form (business name, contact, estimated team size, Champion name/email).

Section 7 — FAQ (Draft below.)

Section 8 — Newsletter Signup Reuse your existing footer signup block.

6. Draft Website Copy

Why the Endowment Matters (Section 2 copy)

Most donations get spent once. Endowment gifts get spent forever.

When you give to the SCF Endowment Fund, your gift is invested — and only the earnings on that investment are granted out each year to the nonprofits doing the real work in Starkville: J.L. King Center, Starkville Strong, Habitat for Humanity, Friends of the Library, Helping Hands, and classroom grants through the Innovative Educator Awards.

That means a $25 gift today doesn't just help once. It becomes a permanent piece of a fund that will still be generating grants for Starkville in 10, 20, and 50 years — long after any of us are still writing checks.

The bigger the endowment, the bigger and steadier that yearly giving becomes. That's why this campaign isn't about one big check. It's about how many of us are willing to be part of it.

How It Works (Section 3 copy)

1. Your workplace, school, or organization joins in. A Champion signs up your team and gets a simple toolkit to share.

2. Everyone's invited to give $25–$1,000. One time or monthly. Every gift counts the same toward your team's participation.

3. We track participation, not dollars. Watch your team's percentage climb on the campaign leaderboard.

4. Hit 75% or 100%, and Starkville hears about it. Teams that reach these milestones get featured in SCF's newsletter and social media — free visibility for the businesses and organizations stepping up for their community.

Sample FAQ

Do I have to give a big amount? No — $25 is a full, celebrated gift. This campaign is built so that participation matters more than amount.

What does my organization get for high participation? At 75% participation, your organization is featured once in SCF's newsletter and on one SCF social media post. At 100%, you get a dedicated feature across both channels, an "All In" window decal, and a spot at our closing celebration.

Where does the money go? Every gift goes into the SCF Endowment Fund. The fund is invested, and only the annual earnings are granted to SCF's community partners and programs — so your gift keeps giving every year.

Can I give monthly instead of once? Yes — the giving form offers both one-time and monthly options.

I don't work for a company that's signed up. Can I still give? Absolutely — you can give individually any time, and we'll happily count you if you tell us who to credit your participation to (or simply give as an individual supporter).

7. Champion Toolkit (What SCF Provides Each Team)

  1. Sign-up confirmation email with their unique giving link + QR code.

  2. Kickoff flyer/poster (break room, front desk) — editable with the org's name pre-filled.

  3. Email template the Champion can send to their staff/members, at kickoff and at the halfway mark.

  4. A short countdown script for a staff meeting or all-hands ("Here's why we're doing this, here's the link, it takes 2 minutes").

  5. Weekly participation update from SCF via email/text so the Champion can post progress internally ("We're at 58%! 12 more people to hit 75%!").

  6. Certificate/decal package shipped automatically once a threshold is hit.

8. Suggested Timeline (6-Week Campaign)

WeekMilestoneWeeks -4 to -1Recruit Giving Teams (target a launch roster before public kickoff)Week 1Public kickoff — website live, social announcement, Champion toolkits sentWeek 2First leaderboard update; early 75% teams start getting featuredWeek 3Midpoint push — "halfway to the finish" messaging, testimonial from an early Gold Circle teamWeek 4Continued team recruitment + individual giving push via SCF's own newsletter/socialWeek 5Final week countdown — daily leaderboard updates, "last chance to get your team to 100%"Week 6Closing celebration event honoring all Silver & Gold Circle teams; final numbers announced

9. Social Media & Recognition Assets to Prepare

  • Individual donor badge: "I'm All In for Starkville 🧡" — simple square graphic donors can post, with space for their name optional.

  • Team milestone graphics: auto-fillable template for "[Org Name] is 75% All In!" and "[Org Name] is 100% All In!" posts.

  • Window decal design: small, dignified "100% All In for Starkville" decal for Gold Circle storefronts/offices.

  • Champion spotlight post format: photo of the Champion + 1-2 sentence quote on why their team participated — this humanizes the campaign and gives you a repeatable content format for all 6 weeks.

10. Tracking Note

You don't need custom software for this. A simple shared spreadsheet (Team Name, Total Staff, # Given, % Participation, Tier Reached) updated weekly, paired with a manually-updated progress-bar graphic on the Squarespace page, is enough to run this cleanly — and it keeps the campaign lightweight enough to launch quickly rather than waiting on a tech build.