UI Dance Marathon pushes fundraising, recruitment with new strategies

The push is on to recruit volunteers and donations for the University of Iowa's Dance Marathon organization and its 18

^th

annual dance off in February. And this time around, organizers are employing a few new strategies.

For starters, the University of Iowa's Dance Marathon leadership team now includes a social media chairperson tasked with capitalizing on the influence that websites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube can have on dancer recruitment and fundraising.

Dance Marathon officials also have organized a first-ever Downtown Community Day that already has more than 15 Iowa City businesses committed to giving a percentage of their sales on Oct. 1 to the organization, which provides year-round support to youth cancer victims that hinges on an annual dance off.

“Without a doubt this has the potential to be a record-breaking year,” said Michael Kinney, marketing director for University of Iowa Dance Marathon.

The last dance marathon event-which requires volunteers to raise $400 and then stay standing, if not dancing, for 24 hours – raised $1.2 million. Kinney said his group hopes to top that total and volunteer turnout at this winter's dance-off on Feb. 3.

“Last year was our first year breaking more than 2,000 dancers,” he said. “But we are continually growing.”

More than 1,100 dancers already are registered for the February event, according to Kinney, putting the volunteer tally ahead of previous years. Kinney credited the record-breaking recruitment pace, in part, to Dance Marathon's recent surge in social media use.

“We have done a lot more social networking this year than in the past,” he said.

Enter Gretchen Bachrodt, the new social media chairperson for Iowa's Dance Marathon crew. She's been reaching people on a mass scale this fundraising season with daily Facebook updates and Tweets. And she's planning to make video newsletters advertising meetings and events that will be posted on YouTube and Facebook this fall.

“Our goal was just to expand,” said Chad Howard, development director for Dance Marathon. He said that Dance Marathon wants to get the entire community involved in supporting the patients and their families treated at the University of Iowa Children's Hospital.

“And we thought, what better way to promote the Iowa City area as a whole,” Howard said.