Seth Yergin helps fund six charitable causes using persuasion skills at Malone University (OH)

2013 Dec 10

Malone University students studying persuasion recently used their new found skills to raise funds for six local charities, raising $3,676 in total from 155 donors!

The upper level class, taught by Jason Moyer, Ph.D., applied principles from Aristotle's Rhetoric and other academic sources on persuasion to the task of raising money. The class project was in support of the University’s missional emphasis on experiential as students learned persuasive strategies through serving the Canton community.

The six recipients’ websites can be found here, and include a local family adopting children, the Palace Theatre, Lighthouse Ministries, The Martin Center, Pregnancy Support Center of Stark County, and Set Free Akron-Canton.

Students employed personal relationships and their social media networks to raise the funds. Strategies included holding events, promoting on social networks, writing articles, and creating promotional videos as well as videos for the University’s online newspaper, the Aviso.

The course is taught by Jason Moyer, Ph.D., assistant professor of Communication Arts at Malone University.

Seth Yergin, a senior communication arts major from Akron, Ohio, participated in the project.

Malone University (Canton, Ohio), a Christian university for the arts, sciences, and professions in the liberal arts tradition, affiliated with the Evangelical Friends Church, awards both undergraduate and graduate degrees in more than 100 academic programs. Malone has been recognized by the prestigious Templeton Foundation as a leader in character development, as one of Northeast Ohio’s Top Workplaces by the Cleveland Plain Dealer, is ranked among the top colleges and universities in the Midwest under the category Regional Universities according to U.S. News & World Report’s America’s Best Colleges 2014, and is named to AffordableCollegesOnline (ACO)’s Best Lifetime Return on Investment list for the State of Ohio.