Your Brand’s Next Evolution.
As Catholic Charities of Baltimore approached their centennial, they were charged with launching the largest capital campaign in the organization’s history, which would propel the nonprofit toward the next 100 years with “Greater Promise.” Catholic Charities is the largest private social services provider in Maryland and this historic milestone presented an opportunity to both reflect on their tremendous contributions to the community and take a deep, honest look inside to ask— how can we do more?
CHALLENGE
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Catholic Charities launched its most ambitious capital campaign to date, with a $75 million fundraising goal.
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The campaign needed to fund program expansion and major infrastructure initiatives while rallying broad community support.
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Success required reframing fundraising as shared responsibility and long-term community impact, not a traditional donation ask.
STRATEGY
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Led a fully integrated marketing campaign designed to build intrigue and emotional investment.
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Launched with an anonymous teaser phase centered on community-driven questions to spark curiosity and reflection.
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Revealed the Greater Promise campaign with Catholic Charities branding and a microsite enabling donations, volunteering, and advocacy.
RESULTS
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Exceeded the $75 million goal in just four months of a planned year-long campaign.
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Ultimately raised more than $100 million, the largest capital campaign in the organization’s history.
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Expanded engagement by creating multiple pathways for involvement, activating both longtime supporters and new community participants.
Help. Give. Love.
The unbranded teaser messages on billboards and buses throughout the city were designed to appeal to the innate compassion in our community as an almost subliminal way to plant seeds of empathy. Nothing to buy. Nowhere to go. Just a call to look inward. After using the teaser ads to build anticipation and interest, Vitamin leveraged the reveal to drive the community to the Greater Promise microsite where they found relevant information about the nonprofit’s newly reframed six areas of focus for programming, the three key infrastructure initiatives, latest news and events, and information on how to get involved and show support.
Visit Site
Something Greater in Us All
The nonprofit has a 100-year history of honoring the humanity in all people by providing imperative services and resources to some of the area’s most vulnerable individuals; children and families, immigrants, individuals with intellectual disabilities, people living in poverty, and senior citizens. Greater Promise was designed to bolster Catholic Charities’ commitment to community advocacy as well as their role in assisting individuals in becoming fully realized versions of themselves. With that top of mind, the content strategy took on a people-first approach, centering stories of real human impact to drive home the significance of Catholic Charities’ work.
Reimagined Programs to Serve.
Greater Promise also represented an opportunity to unveil a complete overhaul of how the nonprofit’s 80+ programs were categorized and presented. Catholic Charities began centering their programming around six key areas of focus to more quickly and clearly articulate the breadth of their work— healing trauma and addiction, aging with dignity, welcoming new neighbors (immigration resources), achieving independence, supporting children & families, and empowering careers.
