Raising the Fundraising Bar

When reviewing the materials, we realized that a lead story was needed to give the report and the 2017-2018 theme context. We reached out to one of our partners, an award-winning journalist, who developed an article that pulled the language of the report together into a cohesive story.

Once the content was finalized, our talented graphic design partner created the report layout and brought the project to life. As with all our projects, there was back-and-forth with MVS as we wrote and designed the piece to ensure we were on the same page and creating a report that met all the school’s needs and wishes.

The collaboration produced stunning results: A 28-page plus cover, 8.5” x 11”, full color, self-mailing, landscape opening Annual Report that makes both Miami Valley School and Oregon Printing proud.

But finishing the piece was not the last step in the Miami Valley School Annual Report project. Our next task was sorting out who should receive the report.

MVS provided three mailing lists. In them, we had duplicates, old addresses, and instances where addresses were for parents instead of student alum, who were the target audience for the mailing.

We were able to combine all the lists, and de-duped them based on addresses. We also did some manual clean-up, working closely with MVS to determine if we had new addresses to replace outdated ones. Last, we ran the list through the National Change of Address (NCOA) software, which helped us update the addresses of recipients who had moved.

As for the former students that have moved from their parents, we developed language to print on the report to help guide parents to the appropriate contact at MVS for updating their children’s addresses.