Social Justice Non-Profit Duet Supports College Students
UCSB American Marketing Association Partners with Duet for Student Ambassadorship Project
By William Qu
Published 06 June 2021
The Duet team including CEO Michael Cesar - center of the front row. Photo courtesy of Duet.
During the Summer of 2020, Tonisha De Witt, Vice President of Projects at the UCSB chapter of the American Marketing Association (AMA), was tirelessly searching for opportunities through LinkedIn that she could turn into a marketing project to offer this school year’s AMA members. She felt extra pressure to find a project opportunity that would provide club members with valuable hands-on marketing experience since the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic had made it especially difficult for college students to get professional experience from marketing-related projects and internships.
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Luckily for her, Tonisha found out through a friend that a social justice non-profit called Duet started by a team of six students from a USC Viterbi School of Engineering course was looking to partner with campus organizations in their new student ambassadorship program. Through this new program, student ambassadors from participating colleges were able to help Duet raise awareness and donations for their mission of helping refugee families located in Lesvos, Greece.
After meeting with both Michael Cesar, the CEO and Co-Founder of Duet, and Charles Liu, the Business Development Lead, to discuss this new opportunity, Tonisha knew she had the perfect AMA project for the new school year. “I love Duet’s mission and I think it’s such an amazing opportunity to be supporting such a great cause, while also being able to get the marketing experience that so many students are desperate to have. It truly is a win-win situation for everyone!” said Tonisha when asked why she decided to take on this project.
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With donor retention being a major concern for the organization, the main goal of the ambassadorship program is for student ambassadors to host virtual events and promote them through social media and email marketing tactics in order to raise awareness and donations of Duet among college students. It is the responsibility of the ambassadors to help grow Duet’s donor base on campus by finding creative ways of spreading campus-wide awareness of Duet’s cause. This may involve collaborating with student-run organizations, professors, local restaurants, and small businesses on special events, fundraisers, and announcements.
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Most recently, the Duet ambassadorship team at UCSB AMA organized and launched a “Secret Santa” fundraiser to help raise awareness and donations among UCSB students. To promote the fundraiser, an Instagram bingo was created and posted on each person’s Instagram story to get friends to re-share and donate to Duet. The team also collectively designed a virtual care package that was sent to all donors. This was a creative way of incentivizing more college students to donate in this virtual fundraiser, while learning more about the refugee crisis and Duet’s mission to lessen its impact on refugee families in need. With the help of a matching donation drive, the student ambassadors were able to collectively raise $738 through this virtual fundraiser by implementing a successful social media and email marketing campaign.
The 51 - page virtual care package that was sent to all donors during the holiday fundraiser.
The student ambassadorship program has proven to be an incredible learning experience for so many students, especially those with an interest in pursuing marketing and non-profit work for a post-graduation career. One such individual was recent UC Santa Barbara graduate Daniel Chang, who only started pursuing a career in marketing during his senior year of college, making gaining marketing experience before graduating an utmost priority for him. Daniel reflected on his time as a Duet student ambassador, saying: “Through the ambassadorship program, I was able to gain experience in event planning, email marketing, social media graphics design. My favorite part of being an ambassador was getting to create all the social media flyers and graphics that were used to promote our virtual fundraisers.” Daniel’s experience working with Duet in the ambassadorship program helped catapult him to subsequent marketing internships, kickstarting his post-graduation career in sports marketing.
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This ambassadorship program is not only an excellent way for Duet to gain more awareness and donations with the help of fresh talent, but is also a valuable opportunity for college students to gain hands-on experience in event planning, social media marketing, and email marketing that they can speak to in their resume, portfolio, and job interviews. For students at UCSB who are interested in either pursuing a career in marketing or entrepreneurship, this opportunity is especially important to take advantage of since UCSB does not offer any marketing or business degree; students, therefore, must be proactive in getting the marketing experience they need for internships and jobs without a marketing-specific degree. In order to sign up for this opportunity, Tonisha De Witt may be contacted via LinkedIn.