Spring

2016

Stockton University CARE Program

Strategic Plan 2016

DEVELOPED FOR THE CLIENT BY: TOYO ABODERIN,
JESSICA BERN, DELLA BOZEMAN, JENNIFER CARROLL,
ALEXANDRA DIAZ, COURTNEY KEENAN, ANDREW
LEATHER, DOMINIQUE MARQUIS, & GEORGE OBELENUS

Table of Contents
Executive Summary...3
Background & Situation Analysis........4
SWOT Analysis..5
Research.....6
Campaign Plan...8
Budget..10
Implementation...11
Evaluation.......16
Appendix A-J............17-30

Executive Summary
Stockton CARE Program is an organization dedicated to pairing students within
Stocktons community with student and faculty mentors to help them make the most of
their educational endeavors in the time at Stockton University. This organization has
great potential to grow in terms of the numbers of mentors and mentees involved.
The following plan is to help the CARE program for the Fall 2015/Spring 2016
semesters. First, the organization will be analyzed to review the underlying problems
thus far. Then, the potential solutions will be discussed to help the CARE program
become a success. Several objectives for the organization will be suggested including:

Increase awareness of the Program to all edges of campus

See more interactivity between CARE and their social media followers
Implement CARE program information at open houses, orientation events, and
parent involved events

This plan will serve as a guide to carry out the remainder of the semester in order
to attain a set of objectives we have put in place. Compliance with the plan outlined
below will bring the Stockton CARE Program the guidance it seeks to prosper here at
Stockton University.

Background & Situation Analysis

The Stockton University CARE Program has been connecting students to either
a professional or student mentor for four years now. This program is a mentoring
program that aims to help its student members succeed at Stockton. The CARE
Program has five main goals in mind for a mentee/mentor pair when it comes to what
they should be achieving. These five goals are: to help the student get organized,
improve their time management skills, develop both academic and career goals, be able
to learn autonomously, and empower the student to succeed at Stockton and achieve
their goals. Their mission and vision is mainly geared at students who are in danger of
either losing their financial aid or in danger of being kicked out of the University due to
academic probationary reasons. However, the program is open to any student who feels
like they need a mentor.
After completing our primary research, we concluded that the CARE Program is
a Stockton University campus based mentoring program. Their vision is dedicated to
supporting Stockton Universitys mission to provide students a rewarding education; and
to optimize students use of campus resources in collaboration with faculty, staff, and
key administrators to help students realize their academic and career goals. We have
also discovered that while the CARE Program has developed a social media presence it
is not regularly updated and does not provide interaction between the student body and
the CARE Program. This has limited the CARE Programs visibility to Stockton students.
There is no direct position for a staff member of the CARE Program to take charge of
the social media accounts; This seems to be part of the reason why social media has
not played a positive effect on the CARE Program.
From a Public Relations perspective, this organization has its fair share of
challenges. Many students on campus associate this program as something solely for
students who struggle academically or financially. In reality, it is a mentoring program
designed to help all students to succeed. Due to the negative stigma, it has deterred
many students from participating in the program and seeking the help they need. Our
campaign was designed to help students view this program as a benefit rather than a
negative. The CARE Program also lacked social media presence and only had contact
with the student population through daily emails. In the world we live in with everevolving technologies, it is important for the CARE program to keep up to date on what
the best channels are to reach students at Stockton.

SWOT Analysis
Internal
Strengths

Provides one on one

relationship between mentor
and student
On campus facility
Readily available information
Easy registration

Weaknesses

External

Opportunities

Improving social media

outreach could bring more
mentors/mentees
Engage and post on social
media to reach out to the
student body
Tabling during high traffic
hours on Stocktons campus
to get information out to
several different publics
within the community
Events featuring mentors and
mentees to increase
relatability to the rest of the
campus community
Spreading the word through
on campus events geared
toward new and transfer
students (open houses,
orientation)

Lack of awareness within

the Stockton community
Lack of representation at
events geared toward
incoming students
Little no to campus
presence outside of office
Outdated information on
websites and social media
Limited social media activity
and interaction with students
and followers
Low intake rate

Threats

Discouraging wording of
mission statement on
Stocktons website deterring
students from participating
Lack of student interest and
desire to be involved
Strict requirements for
mentee participation
Lack of internal
communication in the
program

Research
Stigma Research Methods: Our research in relation to the issue of the negative
stigma surrounding the CARE program aimed to reveal just how much or little students
at Stockton University knew about the CARE Program. We also sought to find out how
they felt about the importance of its aspects. This included a survey which asked a
variety of questions that showed both the quantity of students who had knowledge of
the CARE program and quality of their knowledge. The first few questions asked about
the demographics of the students taking the survey. The rest of the questions
addressed the concerns of retention of the student body, attention to student academics
by teachers and the need for the CARE program at Stockton. Our research also
included a focus group that jump started our ideas for our surveys and our project in
general. The interview conducted for our project was with the Director of the CARE
program itself, Tomas Itass.
Stigma Research Findings: Through this research we found that not many
students knew what the CARE program was with a staggering 72.5% of surveyed
students answering that they were not aware of the program. Despite this high
percentage, once they were told what the CARE program was 87.5% of students
surveyed said that they believed information about the program should be included in In
open houses and orientations at Stockton. In addition, 70% of the students who took our
survey agreed with the CARE Program that student retention at Stockton was important.
Lastly, 87.5% of students surveyed said that if they felt if a friend was in need of the
CARE programs services they would refer them to the program.
Social Media Research Methods: Forty student surveys, four CARE personnel
interviews and a focus group of Stockton University students were used to find out
about Stocktons students awareness of the CARE program on campus. Questions
included in all research processes centered around the CARE programs social media
presence and on campus/social media awareness. The data collected through the three
types of investigative research provided a significant amount of both quantitative and
qualitative data. One of our groups main objectives was to increase CAREs social
media presence and increase student involvement. All the resulting data we got from
these surveys and interviews was pertinent to this objective. After studying these results
we concluded, that students are likely to agree with and support the ideals and services
that the CARE Program provides for Stockton students. However, we also concluded
that the Program needs to make their presence known on campus, because more than
75% of students surveyed and involved in the focus group had heard about the CARE
program before we talked to them.
Social Media Research Findings: All forms of investigative research points to the
result that many students on Stocktons campus were unaware there was such a
program as the CARE program. Based on the survey of forty students, 75% of those
who answered said they had never heard of the CARE program. Of that group, 75%
also stated they would be more likely to get involved in an organization that maintained
a social media presence and was easily accessible on different forms of social media.
95% of those surveyed believed that an organization has the ability to be more
successful if they maintain a consistent presence on their social media sites. We can
conclude from these findings that it is important to get the CARE program up to date on

all platforms of social media that are popular among Stockton students and implement a
way that these platforms can be maintained on a regular basis.

Campaign Plan
Overarching Goal:
Increase mentor/mentee participation in the Stockton CARE program while decreasing
stigma many Stockton students associate with the program
Objective 1: Increase awareness of the Program to all edges of campus
Strategy: Our main strategy is to host an informational event for the CARE program
featuring keynote speakers who are actively involved in the program and have a big
Q&A for potential candidates to ask the questions they would like answers to regarding
benefits of the program and what is required of them in order to get involved.
Tactics: Our team will be tabling at Stockton in days prior to our big event. We will be
providing passersby with information regarding the event as well as information on how
to find us on all of our social medias. Passersby who like us on social media while they
visit our table get incentives in the form of a raffle ticket entry to win a prize of scratch
off lottery tickets. We will also collect e-mail addresses of interested candidates in order
to send them a reminder invite to our event. At the event we will have the head of the
CARE program go over what they do and we will feature a keynote mentor and mentee
to talk about their experiences in the CARE program and how it has benefitted them.
We will then host a Q&A for potential new members to ask what they would like and
have their questions answered. Also at the event there will be a list for people who
would like to sign-up for emails containing more information from tomas and registration
forms for those who want to join at the event as either a mentor or a mentee. We will
also have attendees take a brief survey regarding their knowledge of the CARE
program before and after the event as a means to measure if our tabling and
informational session was valuable.
Objective 2: See more interactivity between CARE and their social media followers
Strategy: Our main strategy is to boost the CARE programs presence on its social
media platforms by at least 30% on all Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, in hopes of
reaching out to current participants of program and promote to new potential
participants.
Tactics: We will launch an Instagram for the CARE program which is something they
have never had before. We believe that Instagram is an untapped social media that is
becoming a very prominent platform used by Stockton students. We will feature new
themed days and hashtags such as #TestimonialTuesday which features a CARE
mentor or mentee sharing a few words about their experience in the program. The
Testimonial Tuesday posts will be posted across all of the CARE Program social
medias. We will also be posting more regularly to CARE programs already existing
Facebook and Twitter. Neither platform has been very well maintained so syncing up
the different platforms in order to reach all the different followers the CARE program has

will benefit them in many ways. Lastly we will regularly encourage our followers to ask
us questions in order to get to know more about the CARE Program.
Objective 3: Implement CARE program information at open houses, orientation events,
and parent involved events
Strategy: After we see an increase of mentor/mentees as well as a stronger social
media presence, we would like to present a copy of our analytics to someone within
Stockton about getting the CARE program more recognition at these events so more
incoming students can be informed that this is a resource they can have should they
choose Stockton.
Tactics: We are working with Tomas, the head of CARE program, to banish the stigma
associated with the CARE program because we believe that is what turns Stockton off
to implementing information into their orientations and open houses. We will be
redesigning the CARE programs brochure information, as well as, making edits to their
website and making the wording on their site read in a more encouraging way and a
way that emphasizes the Program as a mentoring program, rather than a program for
students at risk of losing their academic standing. Once our numbers of participants in
the program increases and we see an increase in the number of Stockton students we
are reaching on social media, we would like to coach Tomas to present our social media
analytics to someone at Stockton who is in charge of orientation and open house
events; in order to show them that this is a program of interest to Stockton students and
would be an asset to implement into these events to let potential students know that this
is something Stockton can offer them should they choose Stockton.

10

Budget
Tabling
Candy

$6.00

Lottery Tickets

$25.00

Raffle Tickets

Donated by Andy

Social Media Cards

$1.10 (We Printed on Campus with Printer Points )
(40 copies, 4 per page 10 pages)
Electronic Sign

Free for Stockton Students to Advertise an Event

Event
Pizza

Flyer
(50 copies)

$5.50 (staples prices) ( We printed on Campus with

printer Points)

Raffle Prize

$22.17

Literature
Brochure

$5.00

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Implementation
Public Objective

Strategy

Key
Message

Channel

Stockton
Students

Increase number
of students
participating in
the Stockton
CAREs
Mentoring
Program

Spread
awareness of
the program to
students
through tabling,
informational
events, and
social media

Everyone should
have a mentor in
their life so its
better to get one
sooner than later.
Once you gain
success from your
mentor, you should
pay it forward and
play the role of
mentor to someone
else who is in the
shoes you once
wore.

Tabling and
Speaker
events,
approaching
students in
common areas

Stockton
Faculty
Members

Increase number
of Faculty
mentors
participating in
the program

Spread
awareness
through tabling
and direct
conversation

Encourage
Tabling and
students who might direct
benefit from the
conversations
CARE program to
reach out and get
involved in it to help
them succeed at
Stockton

Social
Media
Followers

Get followers
more engaged
with our social
media and relay
information
regarding the
program using
these platforms

Gain more
followers and
social media
recognition and
reach out to
followers, Show
followers the
benefits of our
program

CARE Program will

help you succeed
at Stockton

Social media
sites including:
Facebook,
Twitter, and
Instagram

12

Facebook Visual

13

Twitter Visual

14

Instagram Visual

15

Evaluation
Objective 1: Increase awareness of the program to all edges of campus
When the research process began about the CARE program, it was discovered
that many people within the Stockton community had no idea such a program
existed. Of those surveyed, 75% had never even heard of the CARE program.
Survey results showed that many students were unaware of where to find
information regarding the CARE program but, felt having a mentor would be
beneficial throughout their college careers. Throughout the semester, our team
tabled for our informational event and spread information about the CARE
programs updated social media platforms through social media posts, flyers and
word of mouth. At the end of our event, we asked attendees to participate in a
survey regarding their knowledge of the CARE program and their views of
mentoring in general. Numbers increased dramatically. By the end of our
session, 86% of attendees said their knowledge of the program had increased.
93% percent stated they were following us on at least one form of social media.
100% of attendees either agreed or strongly agreed that information about the
CARE program should be provided at open houses and orientations after
learning more about what the program offers. After the actual event session, two
attendees came forth and said they would like to volunteer themselves as
mentees so they could make the most of their academic career. We consider this
to be a public relations success. The awareness spread throughout campus
increased from the start of the semester to the end. We believe that if the social
media websites are maintained in the future, the CARE program will continue to
expand and benefit many more people who attend Stockton in the future.
Objective 2: See more interactivity between CARE and their social media followers
At the beginning of the research process in regards to the CARE programs
social media presence, we discovered there were inconsistent social media posts
and absolutely no presence on Instagram, which is currently a very popular
application among college students at Stockton University. Throughout the
course of this semester we were able to better establish a presence for the
program on Facebook, Twitter and launched an Instagram for them featuring
clever hashtags such as #TestimonalTuesday and #ThoughtfulThursday.
Through tabling events and word of mouth the amount of viewers we were able
to reach out to via social media sites increased. Facebook followers increased
from 137 to 183 representing a 33% increase. Twitter followers increased from
97 to 127 which is a 31% increase. For both of the already established social
media platforms, we reached our benchmark of increasing the amount of
followers by at least 30%. With the launch of the new Instagram, we gained 77
new followers in the few short weeks since it has been established. We consider
this to be a public relations success and hope that after this semester, Tomas
and his members of the CARE program will continue to maintain up to date posts

16

on their social media sites to continue interactivity among users and draw in new
potential candidates for mentors and mentees.
Objective 3: Implement CARE program information at open houses, orientation events,
and parent involved events
Due to the time constraints of the semester, we were unable to speak to
someone regarding getting information about the CARE program into
informational events for incoming students. However, we will be able to provide
Tomas a copy of our PR campaign that includes how numbers of the program
increased with an improved PR plan. From the survey we handed out to
attendees of our information session, 100% of the participants stated they would
like to see this information incorporated into open houses and orientation events.
They believe it will benefit future students with knowledge of a program they felt
could have benefitted them had they been told about it previously. Should he
choose, he will be able to present these numbers to someone at Stockton in
charge of this type of event planning and attempt to get this program mentioned
at events such as open houses and orientations in the future.

17

Appendix A- CARE About Your Future? Flyer

18

Appendix B- CARE Program Social Media Cards

19

Appendix C- CARE Program Brochure- Outside

20

Appendix C- CARE Program Brochure- Inside

21

Appendix D- CARE Survey Questions

1. How much knowledge do you have about the CARE program?
a. NO Knowledge
b. Barely any Knowledge
c. Little Knowledge
d. Some Knowledge
e. Sufficient Knowledge
f. Enough knowledge to inform others
2. Are you interested in Helping Others?
a. Yes
b. No
3. Do you feel like Stockton is making Students aware of the CARE program?
a. Yes
b. No
4. Should this program be introduced at Orientations and Open Houses?
a. Yes
b. No
5. Do you believe that professors at Stockton University should report failing
students to the CARE program?
a. Agree
b. Disagree
6. Do you feel that student retention is important?
a. Agree
b. Disagree
7. Would you refer a friend to the CARE program if you felt they needed it?
a. Agree
b. Neutral
c. Disagree
8. Do you Agree that peer mentoring is important for college students?
a. Strongly Agree
b. Agree
c. Neutral
d. Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree

22

Appendix E- CARE Exit-Survey Questions (Page 1)

1. Prior to this event, describe your knowledge of the Stockton CARE program.
a. No Knowledge
b. Some Knowledge
c. Sufficient Knowledge
2. Stockton Universitys Coordinated Actions to Retain and Educate (CARE) Program is
a. A tutoring program
b. A mentoring program
c. A social club
3. After the CARE Program presentation tonight your knowledge of the program
a. Decreased
b. Stayed the same
c. Increased
4. Which of the following can be mentors in the CARE Program?
a. Peer Students
b. Faculty
c. Both a & b
d. None of the Above
5. I would refer a friend to the CARE program if they were in need of mentoring
a. Strongly Agree
b. Agree
c. Neutral
d. Disagree
6. Peer mentoring is important for college students
a. Strongly Agree
b. Agree
c. Neutral
d. Disagree
7. I would be interested in becoming a mentor in the Stockton CARE Program
a. Strongly Agree
b. Agree
c. Neutral
d. Disagree
8. I am aware that Stockton CARE has social media accounts on the following
(circle all that apply)
a. Facebook
b. Twitter
c. MySpace
d. Instagram
e. SnapChat
9. I follow Stocktons CARE Program on social media (circle all that apply)
a. Facebook
b. Twitter
c. MySpace
d. Instagram
e. SnapChat
10. Prior to tonights presentation, I believed that participation in the CARE Program
stigmatized students.

23

a. Strongly Agree
b. Agree
c. Neutral
d. Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
11. After tonights presentation, I believe that participation in the CARE Program
stigmatizes students
a. Strongly Agree
b. Agree
c. Neutral
d. Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
12. Stockton University should include information on the CARE Program at Open House
And Orientation events
a. Strongly Agree
b. Agree
c. Neutral
d. Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree

24

Appendix F- Media Pitches

25

Appendix G- New Mission Statement

26

27

Appendix H- Event photos

28

Appendix I- Tabling photos

29

Appendix J- Argo Article

30