Orangewood Christian School (Mainland, FL) exists to build an ongoing legacy of disciples. Located in a suburban city in Orange County, Florida, OSC teaches the next generation of believers how to live out their faith. However, its growing student population meant one thing — it was time for some updates.
Without a capital campaign consultant, this Christian school opted to use our non-profit fundraising marketing services to produce communication assets, mostly printed materials. We helped them bring their "Bold" capital campaign theme and initiative to life. The goal was to gather enough gifts for major campus remodeling and retrofit. Aiming to expand facilities so its students would have space and access to more advanced educational services, administrators sought to raise $8.5 million.
Successfully executing a Christian school fundraising strategy can be daunting. While you might have a genuine, God-glorifying need for gifts and pledges, it's still difficult to garner sacrificial commitment. It takes getting parents, grandparents, alumni, staff, and other community stakeholders on your mission. This starts with them seeing and understanding your vision. For example, in OSC's vision for more competitive facilities, it was prudent to allocate reasonable resources for us to help them convey their message, tell their unique story, and compel sufficient giving.
Producing content that's captivating, clear, and a call to action, our campaign communication strategy, ideation, and deliverables bring our clients' future picture (vision) to life. Ultimately, we understand that the right fundraising initiatives often change individual lives and communities. We never take it for granted that we're blessed to serve professionally in this manner!
Because OSC already had a specific audience, particularly young families within the current student body, alumni, and local government, we skillfully built on the client's current brand. Everyone who saw the capital campaign materials, inside and outside the school building, needed to immediately associate it with OSC. Straying too far from the current school's look and feel could have confused potential donors. So this meant capturing their culture as well as building on their school logo, colors, imagery, etc. With the challenge of remaining on-brand, we kept things somewhat corporate clean-concise, without sacrificing style and engagement. Here's how it turned out...
Create a high-impact Campaign Logo to mark a movement.
OSC landed on the capital campaign slogan "bold." Beyond expressing the sentiment behind their ambitious goal, the school requested its community to give boldly, leaning on prayerful consideration and faith.
Therefore, this design captured the essence of the capital campaign theme by leveraging a bold, vertically condensed, san-serif font that's slightly collegiate while placing "campaign" at the core of clean typography.
Rally school spirit with a captivating case statement design.
The multipage booklet design above served as the cornerstone of OCS' thriving capital campaign. Breaking down key information, capturing school spirit, highlighting educational excellence, and underscoring sentiment are just a few aspects of a compelling campaign narrative and detailed case statement. This bold, corporate-clean design goes beyond gathering interest to tell a unique story cover-to-cover.
Use personalized campaign letters to route donors to digital.
To reliably reach and credibly connect with potential donors, you'll need an integrated marketing approach. One might think that most promotion or campaign mail gets "thrown out," when "scroll pass" disregard within the digital space is equally as likely. Sending unofficial-looking letters and standard messages via direct mail, social media, and other digital media can come across as spammy and will likely raise a few eyebrows. Without professional engagement efforts, it can be perceived as "just asking for money" as opposed to rallying genuine support for a cause.
Therefore, OSC wanted its donor base to trust that all campaign letters were official statements from administrators for a much-need cause.
Cutting through the clutter of other direct mail, their series of personalized campaign letters carried critical campaign messages, updates, and deadlines directly to donors Continuing the use of the "BOLD" campaign concept kept content on-mission and on-brand while encouraging donors to recognize, retain, and remember. This unique letterhead and envelope design was packed with school spirit. And as the design remained neutral, it worked with various personalized messages and tones and presented digital call-to-actions and links to explore more.
Make pledge cards a cornerstone for unwavering commitment.
Pledge cards give a successful breakdown for potential donors and invite them to commit to something bigger than themselves. Campaign giving needs to be boiled down in realistic terms and contribution amounts. Most donors won't be able to give millions of dollars to the school, but when hundreds of community members give small gifts, change happens, and goals are achieved. With the Bold Campaign commitment card design, we aimed to build excitement. And crafted a compressive form around the school's renderings, keeping the buildout initiative in focus.
