Imagine being told, “You’re really making a positive difference in the community, but we still have to cut your budget by 40%.” That’s what AWOL, All Walks of Life, Inc., is facing right now. Every year they serve more than 100 youth annually through arts and technology-based programs during the hours when they are most vulnerable – after school and at night. The choice is this – ignore these youth and suffer a life-altering detention sentence at a cost of $45,000 per year or, with a minimal donation, support AWOL and help provide guidance that will transform lives and our community, for the better.
We chose to change lives by helping AWOL raise enough money to keep their incredible work going. To start off with we had to set the brand and messaging tone and settled on a simple black and red motif. This was primarily done to reduce the costs of the print aspects of the campaign, but high contrast doesn't hurt when you're trying to grab attention.
Giving the campaign as much exposure as possible meant expanding the reach of our message from just traditional methods (direct mailer, billboards, tv spots) to embrace social media as well. So we created not just a main web presence where recruits could sign up, but we maintained a facebook and twitter presence as well. This proved to be the most effective way of garnering support as we went from 20 to 200 fans in about weeks.
