Christy Harrison knows a thing or two about motivation and mission. She’s the Managing Director of Chapter Engagement for The Ability Experience, the in-house philanthropy of Pi Kappa Phi fraternity. Her job is to help more than 160 chapters move beyond “we support a cause” and into real relationships with people with disabilities in their local communities.
“I always say The Ability Experience and Pi Kappa Phi are the best combination because our men are literally able to get dirt under their fingernails in service and philanthropy,” she told us. “It’s not about writing a check and sending it to an organization where you never see the benefits. They get to be a part of the disability community and show that disability doesn’t mean inability.”
That hands-on connection, she’s learned, is what turns an obligation into a mission. And that mission requires the right tools – the kind students would actually want to wear, talk about, and work for.
That’s where this partnership really takes off.
Raising the Bar with Incentives
Launched at this year’s Pi Kapp College for Chapter Officers, Christy and her team brought something new to the table: sharp-looking custom rope cap with The Ability Experience logo front and center.
Each philanthropy chairman got one, right there on the spot. Generally, the young people participating in this conference aren’t allowed to wear caps. But this was different. It wasn’t just swag; it was a signal. For the rest of the weekend, that cap became a quiet conversation starter, a badge of leadership – and the spark for one of The Ability Experience’s biggest fundraising jumps yet.
Christy’s team wanted to measure fundraising in a way that celebrated chapters big and small. Total dollars told one story, but dollars per man told another. A chapter of 40 men that raised 10,000 dollars deserved just as much recognition as a chapter of 200 raising the same amount.
So, they built a new incentive around a very special hat:
• Hit 250 dollars per man, and your chapter earned custom hats.
• Hit 500 dollars per man, and you unlocked a special version with The Ability Experience’s class hand circle logo in your university colors.
It Sounded Simple. And it Worked!
At Pi Kappa College, each philanthropy chairman checked in and received one rope cap as a gift and a challenge. It was the only hat allowed to be worn on Sunday – something small that made it stand out. By the end of the weekend, Christy could see it working.
“They came to their final session with their hats, and we just saw it really start conversations,” she told us. Other students wanted to know where they got it, what it meant, and how they could get one, too.
Back home on their campuses, the hats became the centerpiece of a year-long success story. Christy and her team “breadcrumbed” the incentive, sending updates like:
• “You’re so close to 250 – how can we support you?”
• “You hit it! Congratulations. We’ll mail your hats out now.”
Some chapters hit the 250 dollars per-man mark in the spring. Many reached it in the fall. Other chapters – including College of Charleston, Texas Christian University, and Louisville – pushed all the way to 500 dollars per man to earn the fully custom version.
“Incentives like this don’t replace the mission,” Christy said, “but they really can amplify it when the item tells the story and feels special.”
When The Mission Shows Up in the Wild
Christy likes to tell students that fundraising can come from anywhere. You just have to be willing to talk about what you’re doing.
One evening, she was sitting alone at a bar near the University of Mississippi, watching a game. Two sorority women came over – partly to make sure she was okay, partly out of curiosity. Christy told them what she did with The Ability Experience.
Their response: “Oh my god, can we donate?”
She pulled up the fundraising app on her phone. A small conversation turned into a gift, and another story she could take back to students: the more visible you are, the more you talk about your cause, the more opportunities appear.
The hats and shirts play into that same idea. Worn on campus, at chapter meetings, and during recruitment, they’re a low-friction way to put the logo – and the story behind it – in front of people who might never hear it otherwise.
A 10X Jump – “That Screams Success!”
Christy’s fall travel schedule included a “call-a-thon” at Ole Miss, where she helped students run a concentrated, one-hour fundraising push. In that single hour, they raised 17,000 dollars. By year’s end, that chapter had raised 60,000 dollars – up from just 6,000 the year before. The tools had changed. The conversations had changed and so had the results.
For Christy, the custom pieces from The Dunstan Group were part of that shift. The shirts and hats gave students a reason to talk and a way to show what they stood for. Just as important, they felt current.
“I always appreciate how The Dunstan Group’s entire team is so aware of trends because they change so incredibly quickly,” she said. “This hat was something that motivated them 365 days a year. That screams success and engagement in my mind.”
Christy’s goal for 2026 is simple to say and complex to execute: get The Ability Experience brand out there in as many creative ways as possible, while deepening students’ connection to the mission. She wants them to walk into recruitment, into class, into their communities with more than a logo: she wants them to carry a story they’re proud to tell.
That’s where the partnership with The Dunstan Group fits. The right cap, the right shirt, in the right style, can become a talking point, a motivator, a reward, and a reminder of why the work matters. And for the thousands of Pi Kappa Phi members across the country, that rope hat is now exactly that – a daily reminder that their effort, their fundraising, and their service are changing the way society sees people with disabilities.
