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melissa thompson design
CASE STUDY
Powerful Together Donors Together Annual Campaign
The Powerful Together, Donors Together annual giving campaign for Rockhurst University is a project that I take a lot of pride in. From concept to delivery, it was a great collaboration with my team and we far out exceeded the goals of the client.
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This project began with a request from our advancement team to create a giving campaign for the university that had a goal to increase the amount of donors by creating a more sustainable donor. My role in the project was to lead and produce the creative visuals for the website, print and social media.
The process
Kickoff / Messaging
During the initial phase, our objective was to gain a comprehensive understanding of the client's objectives.
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We conducted a collaborative brainstorming session to devise an appropriate campaign title and to formulate our messaging strategy. The client emphasized the transformative impact of collective donor contributions, in contrast to the singular influence of a major donor for the university. Subsequently, our copywriter meticulously polished the text, while I embarked on the conceptualization of visual elements. This concerted effort culminated in the selection of the campaign theme: "Powerful Together, Donors Together."
We're all at different stages of life.
We find ourselves in diverse stages of life, encompassing a range of professions, residing in various locations, and encountering distinct life experiences. Yet, there is a unifying thread that binds us all together - our deep-rooted affection for Rockhurst University.
Whether we have embraced retirement, are actively nurturing our families, recently graduated from college, or stand somewhere in between these life chapters, we each possess the capacity to contribute to the advancement of RU.
Discover Visuals
Gather ideas and set goals for the project.
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The main messaging idea was...We're all at different stages of life.
Different careers, different cities, different ups and downs.
I knew we needed to show strength in numbers, but also show diversity and color to attract the more younger donor audience. I gathered precedent imagery to generate ideas and critique from my team.
Strength in Numbers
Diversity
Colorful
Mockup Ideas
Framework and layout for the project.
The initial mock-up featured a precedent image illustrating donors collectively within a single frame. While we were enthusiastic about this direction, it became apparent that assembling a multitude of donors for a single image would pose a significant logistical challenge.
This prompted us to resume our research, in search of an alternative approach to symbolize the unity of our donors. It was during this process that I recollected the iconic and timeless image of the Brady Bunch family - a depiction of happiness, togetherness, and shared smiles, even though the individuals were not all captured within a singular frame.
I engaged in a collaborative effort with our in-house photographer, who expressed a strong affinity for the concept. I proceeded to create a fresh page layout, which I subsequently presented to our web developer. This layout served as a blueprint for the site's functionality, detailing how the images would rotate randomly each time the site refreshed. Once we secured the client's approval, we initiated the implementation phase.
Create
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Our next crucial step involved gathering images of our generous donors. We organized three dedicated photoshoot sessions, inviting our donors to visit our campus and have their portraits captured. The response was overwhelmingly positive, and we carefully selected bright, solid color backgrounds from the official RU brand color palette to infuse a youthful and vibrant essence into the photos.
The final mockup was meticulously crafted using Photoshop, packaged, and the images meticulously curated and resized. This streamlined the process for the web developer, making it seamless to integrate them into the Drupal website template. Meanwhile, in InDesign, I established character styles for templates, ensuring a consistent and visually appealing alignment with fonts and colors throughout the project.
Design comes together. Gets reviewed, critiqued and refined.
Deliverables
Our subsequent endeavor entailed a collaborative meeting with the Advancement Director to meticulously chart out the comprehensive touchpoints for our campaign. In addition to developing the website, we produced an array of promotional materials, including social media posts, mailers, postcards, and email campaigns. To facilitate the process, I designed Photoshop and InDesign files containing a variety of layouts for social media posts, which were then made available for our social media team to utilize consistently throughout the entire year.
Reflection
This project yielded remarkable success for our client. Not only did they surpass their new donor acquisition goal, but they also achieved a record-breaking level of donations for that year. In our post-project discussions with the client, they shared not only their achievements but also the enthusiastic response from alumni who were thrilled to see their fellow alumni featured in the campaign. Many alumni reached out to the Advancement team, expressing their eagerness to get more involved in university marketing initiatives.
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