Stakeholders
Faculty and Staff
Timing
Fall 2023
Summary
The UBC Internal Communications team runs an annual story series via UBC Today to highlight the faculty and staff at UBC whose hard work, innovation and dedication often happens behind the scenes. In 2023, we chose the theme of sustainability, which is a key institutional priority at the university, to recognize the work being done by our colleagues to support this important work.
The Strategy
Our sustainability story series was meticulously planned and implemented to ensure that it not only celebrated faculty and staff but also enhanced community engagement. The strategic use of diverse achievements and stories, including compelling photography, yielded measurable success, evidenced by positive metrics and positive feedback from the community.
We ran an open call for submissions to faculty and staff on both campuses to share their story ideas with us, demonstrating our commitment to remaining inclusive and maintaining the authenticity of UBC Today.
Through the series, we delivered a compelling narrative that is aligned with one of UBC’s key strategic priorities, affirming our collective commitment to sustainability in a manner that resonates within and beyond UBC.
To conclude the series, we also devised – for the very first time – a way to create a sense of community and appreciation among the faculty and staff community, including for those whose stories could not be featured in our series.
The Solution
This series enabled our community to learn more about the diverse array of sustainability-related work being done by individuals at UBC. It helped give recognition to the efforts of these individuals, as well as celebrate the work being done within Faculties and units to advance this cause.
The Results
This series saw the best response rate of almost 20% – compared to previous years. We featured five stories on UBC Today and across different communications channels across the university. In addition, we recognized the efforts of 13 colleagues in our sustainability gallery. The stories and gallery were shared across central and distributed communication channels across UBC, to ensure broad coverage.
The sustainability stories combined received over 11,000 views on UBC Today, over 500,000 external impressions, and more than 6,000 link clicks.
This series recorded 200% increased visibility and saw ~20% increase in submissions compared to previous years.