FUTURES IGNITE
Developing a message and collateral to engage major donors
Futures Ignite, a non-profit that provides counseling, leadership opportunities, and community-building events to supercharge high school students’ postsecondary futures, needed a new set of decks and one-pagers to recruit potential donors and board members. But before LHC could design the collateral, we first needed to clarify Futures Ignite’s story.
We designed surveys, spoke with stakeholders, and ran workshops that clarified Futures Ignite’s unique value proposition, giving way to a storytelling architecture that would make the fundraising effort more resonant and, hopefully, easier. We then leveraged Future Ignite’s bold visual identity to create compelling collateral the team could use to woo new funders and board members. Finally, we created a guide and trained the communications team in best practices for implementing the message across channels so that the fundraising and communications teams would reinforce the same narrative.
Services
Narrative Development
Messaging Strategy
Collateral Content + Design
Communications Guidance
Messaging Strategy
To develop the narrative arc, LHC developed surveys, conducted workshops, and held one-on-one meetings with supporters and staff. We dug deep and listened closely to stakeholders to understand what drew them to the organization and how Futures Ignite does its work and achieves its outcomes. We also pushed the staff to think about a new, clearer way to frame its story. The end result was an easy-to-grasp message about why Futures Ignite exists, what it does, and how it achieves its results. With the narrative arc in place, we were able to get to work on the collateral.
Collateral Content + Design
Futures Ignite needed a set of decks for donors and potential board members as well as one-sheets about the various programmatic categories. The narrative arc provided a roadmap for clear storytelling for these assets as well as for any future collateral, including the website. LHC also refined and polished the existing branding to give Futures Ignite a more sophisticated and cohesive look and feel.
Communications Guidance
At the end of the engagement, LHC provided a 10-page guide with instructions on how to apply new messaging across all marketing channels, from the newsletter to social media to the website to campaigns.
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