About the Capital Campaign (Case Study)

Background:

The William Way Community Center engages and supports the diverse LGBTQIA+ communities in the greater Philadelphia area through arts & culture, empowerment, and community connections. The Center embarked on a daring and visionary project to transform and rebuild its existing community center into a more expansive, inclusive, colorful, and unabashedly queer space for all LGBTQIA+ individuals., hence they partnered with Creative Repute to design the capital campaign marketing materials that would support their efforts to raise capital.

This nearly 200-year-old building’s deteriorating condition limited the Center’s ability to operate efficiently, incubate new programs, and draw newcomers.

The Center’s leadership worked to address the aging building’s mounting challenges while holding onto its welcoming “living room” feel. However, it was about time this home got more than a touch-up. It was time for more than repairs and short-term fixes; it was time for a fearless leap into the future.

This costly project would take more than two years. Our client needed to launch an extensive capital campaign.

The fundraising would allow the William Way team to:

• * Upgrade, renovate, and preserve the historic front third of the building at 1315 Spruce Street in Philadelphia.
• * Demolish the rear two-thirds of the building and construct a brand new 10-story tower.

About the Deliverables:

Creative Repute collaborated with Fairmount Venture and The Roz Group to produce the capital campaign strategy. Creative Repute spearheaded the production of the following:

• User Personas
• Mood board
• List of Acquisition Channels
• Creative Brief
• Expanded Style Guide
• Taglines
• Calls To Action
• Campaign Logo
• Website detailing the project and its team
• A Brochure
• Email Newsletter Template
• Pledge card
• Slide Show Presentations
• Campaign Videos
• Social Media Templates
• Additional Marketing Materials

With a construction cost of nearly 25 million dollars, the Center sought the support of the Philadelphia community in securing funds for the project. Given the nature of the project, all aspects required meticulous attention to detail and a highly customized, inclusive approach to the design.

Our Approach to The Capital Campaign:

Creative Repute’s strategists and designers conducted extensive research to identify user personas and comprehend the target audience. Review of the client’s website analytics, social media insights, focus group findings, and discussions help us understand who to target. We then crafted a style guide that would embody the project’s objectives. This style guide incorporated suggested Typography, color palette, and custom collage files.

The design for this campaign uses colors inspired by the LGBT+ flag to connect the visuals to the LGBTQIA+ community while maintaining a unique and familiar aesthetic.

The Capital Campaign Design Process:

Once the approved style guide was in place, the design of the logo was finalized, and multiple collage-style marketing materials were produced. The Campaign logo was used alongside the client’s existing logo for the primary Center.

The team collected all necessary assets for the website and marketing materials, such as archival images and text/information. Our UI/UX designers began mapping the user interface, creating the site map, and designing the website’s pages.

Following multiple rounds of review and feedback, the website’s design was finalized, and we received our client’s final approval for the page designs and custom collage files.

With the approved design and site map, our developers commenced coding the website, bringing its pages to life. Creative Repute created a “Pledge Form” for donors to pledge their support to the project. Our team also integrated the client’s third-party fundraising platform with the newly developed website, allowing supporters to make donations and track the fundraising progress directly.

Our design team created a custom project timeline infographic to display on the website, visually showcasing the various phases of the project, from demolition to construction to the grand opening.

Rounding Out the Capital Campaign:

The marketing materials, including digital and print materials and short videos, rounded out the project deliverables so that many of the designs could be used in multiple ways and repurposed for the life of the campaign. For example, the longer campaign video for in-person presentations can be cut into shorter clips for social media. Our designers and the client’s team adhered to the expanded style guide in editing the marketing materials to announce the project to the community and launch their fundraising campaign.

Using recorded video footage, our experienced video editing team crafted a compelling narrative, animated collage, and testimonial video that introduces the William Way Community Center, its mission and vision, and the upcoming construction project to reach a wider audience and maximize fundraising efforts.

Challenges & Considerations:

One challenge was the design’s need to attract shareholders while prioritizing stakeholders. The center is in service to a community that is often overlooked. Our team needed to focus on who the William Way serves while simultaneously attracting shareholders who can pour capital into the mission. We decided to take a story-centered approach, using real people and telling authentic narratives. We also wanted to build a visually compelling campaign that would stand out and be engaging, and nonconforming while being inclusive, equitable, and safe. Much of the archival imagery sourced came from WWCC’s history or had an attachment to Philadelphia.

Another consideration we kept in mind was ways to hold space for fears of gentrification, especially with the recreation of the current mural on the side of William Way. We were sure to use imagery to communicate a sense of community, belonging, and celebration. The collage style of the designs allowed for the use of real faces and photos of the past, present, and future (with 3D mockups of the building). We considered race, accessibility, inclusion, and how to select designs that could bridge the gap between the young and old by using an aesthetic that felt both modern and retro. The display font (Paytone One) is inspired by the typography of the 70s, while Montserrat maintains modernity and is accessible to all readers. The result was eccentric, mismatched, funky, and unapologetic.

COVID and prioritizing digital while maintaining physical ties were also challenging during this project. As a result, the focus was placed on direct outreach as the primary strategy for fundraising.
 

The Result:

The brand identity created for this campaign is entirely bespoke and embodies the essence of the Center and the campaign.

The website boasts an aesthetically pleasing design. It has undergone accessibility testing and is optimized for search engines to expand its reach.

The marketing materials are artsy, visually appealing, captivating, explicit, and informative, providing our client with adequate means of promoting the project.

In conclusion, the project has proven successful and we are proud to have assisted the client in launching their fundraising efforts and establishing a robust online presence that allows them to unite the LGBTQIA+ community in pursuing their substantial construction endeavor.