Raising the amount of money required to run a top-class athletic program is no easy task. For this reason, universities are trying out new and innovative ways to increase donations. The Mountaineer Athletic Club, the professional fundraising organization that helps to support men’s and women’s varsity teams at West Virginia, is trying to stay ahead of the game.
In February, the club tested out augmented reality features in the Mountaineer Athletic Club (MAC) Membership Handbook.
The specially embedded content came to life using the Aurasma augmented reality app. Alumni simply had to download the Aurasma app, search for WVUSPORTS, and scan pages of the handbook with the Aurasma logo to see student athlete videos pop off the page.
Really excited to share w/ our @WVU_MAC members some special content in this year’s Membership Handbook made possible by @aurasma
#HailWV pic.twitter.com/mfzMjM4uBS
— Ryan Schulman (@r_Schulman) February 17, 2017
As 2017 @WVU_MAC Membership Handbooks hit
, it was important for our SA’s to
their story about how influential donor support is to them! pic.twitter.com/U3pt6r9cGn
— Ryan Schulman (@r_Schulman) February 22, 2017
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For WVU, this was a relatively small-scale test to see if augmented reality could make a return on investment for the university.
“Long-term it was a pilot and a test for our membership to see if it made sense,” explained Ryan Schulman, West Virginia’s Associate Director of Annual Giving. “The opportunities are endless for it.”
Aside from the future potential, the AR content added another dimension when telling student’s stories.
“For us it was a neat opportunity to get our student athletes out in front,” Schulman explained. “For the majority of our fans the only time they’re seeing our student athletes is when they’re playing in a game. They’re not seeing them in a humanized role, as student, so that was really our goal more than anything else.”
Previously, Ohio State worked with Aurasma on a larger scale partnership that augmented posters, t-shirts, and gameday magazines.