Lumina announces $1M challenge winner
Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
Indianapolis-based Lumina Foundation has announced the winner of The Million Dollar Community College Challenge it launched in February. The national grant competition was created to help two-year colleges connect with adult learners by helping schools improve on brand building and marketing. The grand prize winner was Madera Community College in California.
In an interview with Inside INdiana Business, Lumina Strategy Director for Community College Participation Shauna Davis explained the goal was to help community colleges take a holistic look at telling their story and attracting students.
“We really wanted colleges to think about not only the development of external marketing efforts, but this idea of can you carry through on your brand vision from the website to the parking lot to the classroom,” said Davis.
LISTEN: Davis explained to Inside INdiana Business reporter Wes Mills that the $1 million grant could be transformational for the institution.
In awarding the $1 million grand prize to Madera, Davis says the school’s video presentation impressed judges.
“They talked about wanting to create this visceral feeling, a sense of belonging was the term they use, on their campus and in their community,” explained Davis. “It was a very simple and direct message, but it really homed in on carrying that theme through [out].”
Davis says four-year colleges and universities often have the resources to engage in brand positioning, but community colleges are often underfunded. Davis says they often lack sophisticated brand building and marketing efforts to attract students.
“One of the questions in the application asked, ‘how would you use a million dollars to transform your brand building efforts,’ and that was intentional. We wanted to give a significant enough grant that a college could not only have an idea, but actually build that idea and bring it to bring it to life,” Davis said that is something community colleges don’t get a lot of resources to do.
In addition to the top prize, nine other finalists received $100,000 grants. The community colleges spanned from coast to coast, but no Indiana school made the final cut.
The 10 schools will receive technical assistance to develop actionable brand building and marketing strategies.
“They all came up with a vision for what they wanted to do at their college and in their communities. And we actually have professionals that are going to work with them over this next year to help them bring that to fruition,” said Davis.
Davis says the hope is that the lessons learned by the winning schools will be shared for the betterment of any college that is trying to improve its position.
“We want them to be able to see ideas that are working in other communities and to try those and see if they might work for them as well,” said Davis.
Click here to learn more about the program and the grant recipients.