Brick by Brick – White Paper
Situation Analysis/Research
Trade Institute of Pittsburgh (TIP) is a non-profit providing training in the skilled trades to create opportunities for individuals with barriers to employment. TIP engages the formerly incarcerated to meet a growing need for skilled workers across the trades as the older generation of workers retires. These trades include masonry, carpentry, painting, welding, and a variety of other skilled trade fields.
As busy as TIP was helping its students rebuild their lives, they needed someone to help rebuild their social media and marketing strategy, as well as support the organization’s fundraising efforts.
The biggest piece of their fundraising efforts? Pittsburgh’s Annual Day of Giving, a one day fundraiser that nearly every non-profit in the city participates in. TIP needed a way to stand out in a crowded field of non-profits on that day. Their agency, Covalent, decided that one day wasn’t enough to tell TIP’s story, so “Brick-by-Brick: 10 Day of Giving” was born.
Planning
Covalent found out that a funder was willing to donate the cost of one full-tuition ($8,000) at the end of 2018. With this knowledge, Covalent developed a matching campaign that was based on unlocking that donation. If TIP’s other donors could raise an additional $8,000 the first $8,000 would be donated immediately.
Covalent developed a ten-day campaign that included the following tactics:
Email
Campaign Landing page
Video
Social media — included individual TIP student stories on Instagram
Implementation/Execution
The campaign launched on Pittsburgh Annual Day of Giving.
Each day after the launch, a new personal success story was shared on social media and via email, sharing the difference TIP has made in individuals’ lives. From photos to videos to longer written content, Covalent was able to tell diverse and dynamic stories about the TIP experience.
Evaluation
In the first four days of the campaign, Covalent had already raised more than the goal of $16,000. All told, the 10-day campaign raised $24,000 helping provide full tuition to three TIP students.