Community-Powered Nonprofit Fundraising Campaign
CASE STUDY: Moton Museum
Expanding donor base and amplifying reach by transforming an annual banquet into a day-long virtual event.
The Challenge
Designing a virtual nonprofit fundraising campaign to fuel Moton Museum’s education and outreach programs while commemorating the 70th anniversary of the student walkout and the 20th anniversary of doors being open to the public.
The Growth
The Moton Museum exceeded its initial fundraising goal in advance of the event, raised its event-day goal by 66% and achieved that goal as well.
The Approach
Alongside the Moton team, we designed a strong messaging strategy that shared the Moton story while highlighting the timeliness of their mission alongside the Black Lives Matter movement and national protests for racial equality in America. We coordinated and guided the Board’s outreach while implementing a statewide PR campaign.
The Team
Letterpress believes in engaging input and buy-in from the community surrounding any effort. For Moton Museum this included:
The Stories
We believe storytelling is key in building relationships and success. With the Moton team, Letterpress focused its story on a campaign to:
- Commemorate the past. Seize the moment. Pledge to the future. (The event tagline.)
- Define Moton Museum as the home of a vital, ongoing conversation about civil rights.
- Set Moton Museum apart as the nation's only civil rights museum that commemorates the walk-out and lock-out generations.
- Highlight the Moton Museum as an inspiration for the ongoing fight for equality and freedom by those who currently stand on the front lines.
We are a mission-driven company. We only work with organizations that we believe have a positive impact in their communities.
All funds fueled Moton’s education, outreach and operations, allowing the museum to extend its reach and raise awareness of the Moton Story and the fight for civil rights in education.
Executive Director Cameron Patterson said, "Moton Live continues to be an ongoing event for our organization, and we are working to find new ways each year to grow and strengthen it."
The Good
The Learnings
Harness the power of your community to spread the word — but, first, enable them with the tools.
We created a toolkit and sample social media posts for board members and other museum supporters to share.
Plan, implement, evaluate, adjust.
At the end of this project, the team took the time to evaluate what was successful, what could be replicated next year and what should be approached differently in the future.
We were thrilled to work with the team at Letterpress as they helped us carry forward our vision for our new giving event. Letterpress helped us to pivot in a new direction during a time when many organizations were having to build and support a new virtual audience. Their team took the time to really learn and understand our goals for the event, and they provided a range of assistance that included technology support, fundraising strategy, content writing and marketing.
— Cameron Patterson, Executive Director, Moton Museum
