Narratus/Data In Action

Capital Campaign Support

Case Study: Pitzer College was beginning fundraising for the Residential Life Project of the college, a construction project that would result in 5 new, much-needed dorms. The project was a “green building” project, with a focus on building learning communities rather than just buildings. As such, it was in close alignment with the values of the college and its constituents.

Challenge:

However, many people are not as familiar with the concept of “green building” as they are traditional building practices, and both the fundraisers and the potential donors needed education. The challenge for the college was threefold. In discussions with potential donors, they needed to:

clarify the project

represent the college as a leading force in innovation as well as update people on the national status of the college as an institution

emphasize the collaborative approach Pitzer took to involve the entire Pitzer community in the design phase of the project, demonstrating another core value at Pitzer

Solution:

Narratus created a DVD with multiple digital stories, a tool that contains facts and figures, as well as testimonials, and digital stories told from varying perspectives, including student films and music by students. There was a unique opportunity to demonstrate collaboration: in 2005, Pitzer christened its new media studies department. The Narratus “documentary style” approach to multi-media aids for marketing and user adoption of ideas and systems is very much in alignment with the documentary style approach of Pitzer’s film program. Therefore it seemed natural to join forces with Media Studies faculty and students. This served to underscore the importance of consensus in the Residential Life Project by showing not only faculty, alum, parent, and administration involvement in the project, but also students both on and behind camera. The resulting product can be used as a visual aid to many different styles of presentations by varying members of the Pitzer Community. It includes two 5 minute videos as well as 3 shorter ones that were created by the students as mentored by Narratus. As an unexpected benefit, it has been used to explain the project to bidding vendors, thus saving administrative time for fundraising instead!

Sequel

The groundbreaking occurred in September of 2005. In each invitation to the event was a gold DVD. The video displayed was a short digital story about how the students had been involved in the design phase of the Residential Life Project. This content was repurposed from the footage collected for the campaign DVD. Then, a crew of students videotaped the groundbreaking, with supervision by Narratus, and another digital story was created and placed on the Pitzer web site. Finally, several of the digital stories from the campaign DVD were placed on the web site as well, thus taking full advantage of digital media to engage a broader audience in the campaign.

“We were extremely pleased with the work that Narratus undertook for Pitzer. As their name implies, they helped us to discover, clarify and tell stories that illuminated the core elements of our fundraising campaign. They captured people’s attention, and deepened our constituencies’ interest in our project which, then, led to strong philanthropic support. I would recommend Narratus to anyone with an important story to tell.” Laura Skandera Trombley, President, Pitzer College

		Home > Who We Are
		Capital Campaign Support Case Study: Pitzer College was beginning fundraising for the Residential Life Project of the college, a construction project that would result in 5 new, much-needed dorms. The project was a “green building” project, with a focus on building learning communities rather than just buildings. As such, it was in close alignment with the values of the college and its constituents. Challenge: However, many people are not as familiar with the concept of “green building” as they are traditional building practices, and both the fundraisers and the potential donors needed education. The challenge for the college was threefold. In discussions with potential donors, they needed to: clarify the project represent the college as a leading force in innovation as well as update people on the national status of the college as an institution emphasize the collaborative approach Pitzer took to involve the entire Pitzer community in the design phase of the project, demonstrating another core value at Pitzer Solution: Narratus created a DVD with multiple digital stories, a tool that contains facts and figures, as well as testimonials, and digital stories told from varying perspectives, including student films and music by students. There was a unique opportunity to demonstrate collaboration: in 2005, Pitzer christened its new media studies department. The Narratus “documentary style” approach to multi-media aids for marketing and user adoption of ideas and systems is very much in alignment with the documentary style approach of Pitzer’s film program. Therefore it seemed natural to join forces with Media Studies faculty and students. This served to underscore the importance of consensus in the Residential Life Project by showing not only faculty, alum, parent, and administration involvement in the project, but also students both on and behind camera. The resulting product can be used as a visual aid to many different styles of presentations by varying members of the Pitzer Community. It includes two 5 minute videos as well as 3 shorter ones that were created by the students as mentored by Narratus. As an unexpected benefit, it has been used to explain the project to bidding vendors, thus saving administrative time for fundraising instead! Sequel The groundbreaking occurred in September of 2005. In each invitation to the event was a gold DVD. The video displayed was a short digital story about how the students had been involved in the design phase of the Residential Life Project. This content was repurposed from the footage collected for the campaign DVD. Then, a crew of students videotaped the groundbreaking, with supervision by Narratus, and another digital story was created and placed on the Pitzer web site. Finally, several of the digital stories from the campaign DVD were placed on the web site as well, thus taking full advantage of digital media to engage a broader audience in the campaign. “We were extremely pleased with the work that Narratus undertook for Pitzer. As their name implies, they helped us to discover, clarify and tell stories that illuminated the core elements of our fundraising campaign. They captured people’s attention, and deepened our constituencies’ interest in our project which, then, led to strong philanthropic support. I would recommend Narratus to anyone with an important story to tell.” Laura Skandera Trombley, President, Pitzer College the Narratus Difference \| Demo Reel \| Our Clients \| Data Capture \| Music & Sound \| Contact Us copyright � 2005 Narratus. All rights reserved.