Building a Foundation

We were approached by the new director of the Fort Calhoun Community Schools Foundation to help create a new face for a long-established foundation. The Foundation was originally established in 1985, and has awarded over $150,000 in scholarships to Fort Calhoun High School Seniors since its inception. Dr. Don Johnson, who has over 30 years of experience in the Fort Calhoun Community School district, serves as the Director of the Foundation, which is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. The board is comprised of teachers, parents, community leaders, and representatives from other school organizations.

They were looking for a complete refresh for the Foundation brand. We created a slew of new creative content for the Foundation including a new logo, website, a brand film, and lots of new copy and other media content.

For the brand film, rather than just spelling out the mission statement of the Foundation, we really wanted to paint a portrait of the community of Fort Calhoun and why people choose to live here. We wanted to illustrate why the school system is one of the best in the state of Nebraska. While interviewing people for the film, it became apparent that so many alumni have made the move back to their roots because of the quality of life offered to them in this community. That’s pretty rare for a town this size in Nebraska. There is a migration happening and we felt this was a very important thread to pull on. We talked with educators, students, alumni, and people that simply love this town. Joey and I made the concious decision to move here and raise our family in a small town community. It’s totally worth noting that we absolutely loved our childhood neighborhood in the middle of the city, but after living in multiple small towns in Colorado and Montana, we wanted our kids to experience the qualities of life present in a small community. So that was the essence that we wanted to capture in this film. It was a very rewarding project to work on because we got to work with so many people that share our love for creating a strong community and making your ecosystem better every day. You can view the film here or just hit play below.

In addition to the brand film, we also created a series of alumni Spotlight videos. These pieces share fun stories, thoughts, and memories about the impact that the schools and community of Fort Calhoun have made on their lives. Here is an example of one of the videos that we created for this series that features Dr. Tony Macdissi:

For a more in depth look at the new website that we created for the Fort Calhoun Community Schools Foundation, please head over here. This was a very rewarding project to work on. If you know of a foundation, non profit, or community organization that could use help with their marketing or brand identity, we would be honored if you told them about us!