Students star on and off camera in internationally recognized production

Albion College received “Video of the Year” honors from the Association of Donor Relations Professionals during its annual international conference last week in Pittsburgh.

The ADRP Video Awards, also known as “The Stewies,” showcase the best of donor relations videos submitted by teams worldwide. As stewardship videos become an increasingly popular means of communicating the mission of organizations to donors, the quality of the storytelling has increased.

Albion’s three-minute video, produced by BluFish Consulting in Marshall, highlighted three Albion students—Candace Cullens, Jordan Herron and Bailey Beem (all from the Class of 2016)—who spoke movingly about their ability to complete their undergraduate education at Albion thanks to the support from scholarships. (The full five-and-a-half-minute version of the video is featured above.)

The top 10 videos (out of more than 100 submitted) were selected by a panel of judges from across the country and viewed by conference attendees who then voted on the winning entry.

Kimberly Frick Arndts, ’84, Albion’s associate director of donor relations and stewardship, was at the conference to accept the award and admits she was as surprised as anyone that Albion prevailed over larger schools and organizations.

“As corny as it sounds, it really was an honor just to be nominated, since we were in the running with organizations like the University of Texas, Rutgers University, the University of Michigan and Cook Children’s Hospital in Texas,” she said. “I felt like Albion was sitting at the grown-ups table.”

She also thanked Julie Wood, ’16, who worked closely with Arndts in an internship as part of her studies in the Carl A. Gerstacker Institute for Business and Management. Wood knew the scholarship recipients on campus and that their stories would resonate on screen.

“She made this project her own,” Arndts said, “and together with her peers was responsible for the genuine and compelling content in the video.”