Storytelling
St. Thomas Schools and Colleges
Situation
The University of St. Thomas fundraising communications team had historically focused on annual donors who give less than $5,000 a year. Most of those gifts came through the university's development website, which functioned primarily as an ATM for collecting small donations. When given the directive to pivot away from small gifts toward major gifts to specific colleges, the communications team had to re-imagine how the website would be used without alienating its annual donors.
Task
Build a new section of the fundraising website that is designed and written specifically for major donors ($50,000+). In this section, there will be pages for major fundraising initiatives and for each college within the university. Although each page will follow the same template, pages will have their own unique tone and personality to reflect each college's culture. Copywriting on these pages will also deviate slightly from traditional fundraising messages and will focus more on impact and transformation.
Execution
By using student recruitment collateral to get a feel for each college's brand and culture, I began creating designs for each page and used bold images and forceful copy - especially by fundraising standards - to evoke strong emotion. Copy was also tailored to clearly express the transformational impact of major gifts. Once page drafts were complete, I worked with each college's director of development to fill out the pages with internal fundraising goals and priorities to market before taking the final drafts to development leadership.
Results
These pages have been well-received by gift officers and directors of development, as they offer a digital case statement that they - and their donors - can access from anywhere. This section was also launched shortly before the COVID-19 outbreak, and it offers an opportunity for digital engagement that did not exist before. Most importantly, average time on pages in this section of the site is up 20% since the launch of this content and up 34% compared to other sections of the site, indicating that this content is performing well in engaging potential donors in the consideration stage of making a gift.