Stanford Athletes & Summer Scamper 5K Campaign

Turning Athletes into Impact Influencers

Context

Summer Scamper is a flagship fundraising initiative supporting pediatric programs at Stanford Children’s Health. To expand awareness beyond traditional hospital audiences and engage a younger demographic, I developed a strategic partnership with Stanford Athletics’ Lifetime Cardinal program.

Rather than treating athletes as one-time participants, the goal was to position them as authentic, mission-aligned influencers.

Strategic Objective

  • Expand reach beyond existing hospital audience

  • Engage younger, sports-adjacent communities

  • Increase event visibility during peak fundraising season

  • Build a repeatable athlete-influencer model

  • Drive measurable growth and engagement across platforms

My Role

  • Initiated and cultivated Lifetime Cardinal partnership

  • Identified and onboarded five student-athletes (Football + Women’s Basketball)

  • Concepted and produced Running Into Scamper, a short-form interview series

  • Directed creative tone, scripting, and platform-specific execution

  • Integrated series into broader Summer Scamper campaign strategy

  • Monitored analytics and translated insights into executive reporting

This was not just content production — it was partnership strategy + campaign architecture.

Execution

Athlete-Driven Storytelling

Launched Running Into Scamper, a short-form conversational interview series highlighting:

  • Why athletes were participating

  • Their connection to the cause

  • Their training and preparation

  • Their personal motivations

The format was personality-forward, conversational, and optimized for Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok.

Cross-Platform Deployment

Five posts were distributed across:

  • Instagram

  • LinkedIn

  • TikTok

Content was optimized per platform while maintaining cohesive campaign messaging.

Impact

🚀 Exceptional Audience Growth (May–June Peak Season)

Running Into Scamper contributed to:

  • +15% Instagram follower growth

  • +3% LinkedIn follower growth

  • +16% TikTok follower growth

This acceleration occurred during a critical fundraising window.

📈 Strong Engagement Signals Resonance

  • 8.08% average Instagram engagement rate

For context:
Nonprofit industry averages range from ~0.5%–2.5%, with even strong benchmarks around 5–6%.

This indicates the athlete-led format meaningfully outperformed typical nonprofit content.

🌍 Broke Beyond Existing Audience

  • 91% of Instagram users reached were non-followers

This confirms the series expanded awareness beyond our current supporter base — introducing the Foundation to new, untapped audiences.

Why This Matters Strategically

The combination of:

  • High non-follower reach

  • Strong engagement

  • Significant cross-platform growth

demonstrates that athlete-driven, personality-forward storytelling is an effective model for expanding philanthropic visibility and relevance.

More importantly: This partnership established a scalable athlete-influencer framework that can be replicated across future impact initiatives.

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