More than 400 people promised to take part in one small, sustainable act through the DOT campaign at the men’s basketball game against Connecticut on Saturday.

DOT, or Do One Thing, is a project of the Syracuse University Students in Free Enterprise. The campaign promotes sustainability by asking everyone to commit to one small act toward economic, environmental or social betterment.

‘It’s the sum of everyone’s DOTs that really makes the impact,’ said Joe Hanko, a sophomore marketing and entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises major and co-project leader for DOT.

Saturday’s basketball game against UConn marked the ‘hard’ launch of the DOT campaign, which was established at SU last year. SU SIFE members spread awareness of the campaign, before and during the game, by soliciting individual pledges, or DOTs, and offering visitors the opportunity to ‘Dunk a Husky’ in the backcourt of the Dome.

‘We chose UConn because it is the biggest game of the year,’ Hanko said. ‘The more people we have coming to the game, the more people we have coming to our table.’

Matt Gartner, SU SIFE president and senior information management and technology and entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises major, said he was pleased with the turnout. He said the 400 DOTs collected Saturday mark just more than 20 percent of the total number of DOTs collected within the last year.

DOTs are submitted to the website dotoncampus.com, which analyzes each DOT to quantify an overall effect, said Josh Fishman, co-project leader for DOT and senior marketing and entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises major.

‘By committing to turn off the water when you brush your teeth, each person saves 22 gallons of water each week,’ Fishman said, ‘so if you multiply that by the 30,000 people in the Dome today, you see the larger impact.’

Fishman said DOTs may be social, like a commitment to serve in a soup kitchen for a few hours each month, or economic, like a monthly donation to a charity.

Mobile platforms like iPads and smartphones allowed SU SIFE members to collect DOTs at the DOT table in the backcourt and throughout the venue.

The dunk tank, which offered anyone who donated to the World Wildlife Fund the chance to throw a ball at a target and dunk an SU SIFE member in a UConn T-shirt, was intended to attract people to the DOT table, Fishman said.

The dunk tank raised more than $600 dollars for WWF, whose mission aligns well with that of SU SIFE, Fishman said.

‘What is great about tabling at the Dome … is that we are able to talk to people who are not necessarily from Syracuse University and that increases our audience,’ Hanko said. ‘We can really reach out to the community in that way.’

SU SIFE worked closely with the Dome staff to implement the initiative, said Peter Sala, senior associate athletics director for facility operations and Carrier Dome managing director.

Sala said he had several meetings with SU SIFE representatives to coordinate the table and dunk tank, loudspeaker announcements and the printing of the DOT logo on tickets.

DOT developed from a weekend of collaboration and brainstorming between SU students and representatives from communications company Saatchi & Saatchi two years ago. Hanko said DOT adapted an existing campaign directed toward corporate sustainability to a more campus-oriented campaign.

After largely focusing on the SU campus last year, the DOT campaign aims to spread nationally and has already partnered with Washington University, the University of Virginia and New York University, Hanko said.

Hanko said reaching out on both a campus level and a national level is important.

Said Hanko: ‘These sustainable practices really add up, and they have a big quantitative impact.’

nagorny@syr.edu 

Published on February 12, 2012 at 12:00 pm