Communications

Micro-Fundraising Campaigns

For many years, Seattle Preparatory School raised funds for a one-time need through a paddle raise at the auction. I transformed this 5-minute ask for donations from the podium into a comprehensive micro-fundraising campaign. Content I created for the annual “Fund-A-Need” campaign includes a webpage, promotional materials for the event, emails and phone scripts for soliciting non-auction guests, and a video.

As video producer, I identified talent, conducted and scripted on-camera interviews, scheduled the shoots, wrote lower thirds, and helped edit the final piece. This strategy doubled, and some years tripled, previous revenue. Additional “Fund-A-Need” videos are here and here. The last video listed was the most complicated to produce as it was filmed during a pandemic with few students on campus, and required me to tell a different version of the story I had presented several years earlier.

Endowment Dashboard

I created this infographic with design help from a contract graphic artist for Seattle Prep’s printed annual report. The piece was designed to educate school families and alumni about donor demographics for school endowments. It also serves a dual function as a stewardship (recognition) strategy for the donors and classes who established endowments in the prior fiscal year, and a cultivation piece for individuals thinking about starting an endowment.
Click here to view.

Memory Keepers

This was one of my most difficult writing assignments. After the husband of a prominent school trustee lost his mother, he and his wife established an endowment in his mother’s name to support the school yearbook program. His mother, his wife, and his three daughters were all high school yearbook editors. This magazine article was intended to announce the school’s newest endowment and honor the family’s work to preserve the memories of others.

During the writing process, the wife (trustee) passed away. She left behind four children under age 25, the youngest of whom would enroll as a freshman at the school right before publication. Few people in the school community knew about her illness and because of the global pandemic, the family was not able to have a memorial. This story made her death public, and while it was painful for the husband to grant permission for publication, I believe he did so partly because of the rapport I developed with him and his wife over the past few years, and perhaps because they knew other families were also grieving the loss of a loved one.

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Proposal for Capital Project

Well-written proposals are vital for every major gift officer. I wrote this proposal for a capital campaign request to a local foundation. It was a text-only, character-limited file submitted electronically through their website.

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Endowment Presentation to Advancement Peers

An advancement colleague from another Jesuit school and I presented on the success of our endowment programs. He focused on the financial case for support and I shared campaign execution. The audience included Jesuit school advancement peers and school administrators from around the country.

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Keep Your Eyes on the Cross

This story of a bequest from a past parent turned priest is one of several print pieces I wrote for the school magazine to promote planned giving. The target audience includes other school parents and the wider school community. It was later republished on the school’s planned giving website.

Click here to view.

Social Media – Seattle Prep’s LinkedIn Administrator

Despite having several LinkedIn administrators, none of them posted content on Seattle Prep’s page. I began posting created and curated content, filling a void in the school’s owned media channels. As of 2022, the LinkedIn page had over 1,300 followers, larger than both the reach and audience of the school’s alumni Facebook page. In one year, we added two-four dozen followers each month, a significant number for a school that graduates less than 200 students per year.