Invitation Design Helps People Connect with Organization’s Mission

CLIENT: Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County, NJ

CHALLENGE

How do you expand the audience for an event which has traditionally attracted women only, to include more men? This Federation’s Main Event is the signature event for their Women’s Philanthropy division, and a key source of connection and revenue. However, faced with a shrinking donor base, the goal was to appeal to a wider audience.

SOLUTION

Strengthening FamiliesWith the change in the nature of the event to a less formal structure, we decided to emphasize the topic of the event — Inside the First Marriage. As an example of effective nonprofit design, we created a gatefold design that invites the recipients to open the invitation, and step inside the White House. We put more emphasis on the speaker’s topic, rather than as just a social mingling opportunity, and feature the recognizable Main Event logo on the front, but in a more subordinate role.

Seeing the mailing as an opportunity to inform people about the Federation’s work, we also connected the event to an aspect of the Federation’s mission, by creating a panel that describes their programs that strengthen families. We also created an email version of the invitation.

RESULT

The event was a huge success — attracting 160 people — more than double the 60 attendees from the previous year.

Further Findings

A post-event online survey was conducted to learn want people thought of the event. The attendees indicated that the printed email was the primary way that they found out about the event. This was interesting since 4 times the amount of people received an email invite as did the printed invite (in fact, the emails went out twice). So the invite did its job in getting people’s attention.

We also discovered that most people attended because they were interested to hear the keynote speaker, but after the event reported that they were most moved by the personal stories of local women who supported the Federation’s work.

The survey also asked what should be improved for next year’s event, so we gained some valuable feedback about that as well. The survey was short – just 5 questions so that people would be motivated to respond. We used Survey Monkey since it’s free and easy to use. It’s a great tool to use to gain feedback on your event, and it helped us learn what marketing worked, what people wanted to hear, and how to create an even more successful event next year.

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CONTACT US

Red Rooster Group is a New York based graphic design firm that creates effective brands, websites and marketing campaigns for nonprofits to increase their visibility, fundraising and communications effectiveness. Contact us at info@redroostergroup.com.

Event Invitation for High Level Donors Conveys Organization’s Themes

CLIENT: Jewish Federation of Greater Middlesex County, NJ

Challenge

You might think that your high level donors know about your organization, after all they are giving substantial amounts of money. However, donors come to organizations in many ways, including others that bring them in, and donors might not know as much about your organization as you think.

We found that this was so for the Jewish Federation serving Greater Middlesex County, NJ. A survey among donors found that many were unfamiliar with all of the ways in which the organization builds value in the community.

So when we were tasked with creating the invitation for this group of influential donors, we saw it as an opportunity to help them understand more about the organization.

Solution

We used the theme of Transformation to ties together the speaker (A German who converted to Judaism), and the venue (an historic barn that had been relocated and restored) as well as convey the Federation’s work in transforming lives through the humanitarian aid that it provides. We included a paragraph about what the Federation is doing so that even those who may not attend the event can learn more about the organization’s work (notice the bottom photo and paragraph on the right hand panel of the invitation).

We have been using this tactic of “advertising” to the donors at every opportunity, to deepen ties with the organization.

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Overcoming the Odds Fundraising Event Invitation Design

CLIENT: Student Advocacy

Student Advocacy’s annual Overcoming the Odds Award Gala Dinner celebrates students who have faced serious challenges in their life including physical and mental issues, sexual abuse, and other hardships. The low cost 2-color invitation package and journal is economical to print.

15th Annual OTO Journal

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Red Rooster Group is a New York based graphic design firm that creates effective brands, websites and marketing campaigns for nonprofits to increase their visibility, fundraising and communications effectiveness. Contact us at info@redroostergroup.com.

Award-Winning Promotional Campaign for a Fundraising Event

CLIENT: Jewish Community Center, Deal, NJ

Using the Safari theme, we created materials that attracted attention and increased attendance for this organization’s annual fundraising auction. The campaign consisted of a postcard, invitation, poster and auction program guide.

Each item in the campaign featured a different animal with a different pattern. The type was designed to look like it was stenciled on crates, and the items were printed on a recycled craft stock. The award-winning campaign resulted in the JCC’s most successful fundraising event to date.

American Graphic Design Award

  • Published in the book Direct Response
  • Published in the book Postcard Graphics

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FivePoints Compliance display booth helps launch new tech firm

CLIENT: FivePoints Compliance

We created this display for FivePoints Compliance, an email compliance service for the financial sector marketed primarily at technology conferences. This part of an overall brand development effort, which included corporate collateral and sales materials.

FivepPoints Branding

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