Grounded in Growth

Benchmark School is an independent, co-educational school for grades 1-8, supporting children who have learning differences like dyslexia or dysgraphia, ADD/ADHD, or executive function skills challenges. For over 50 years, Benchmark has certified its place as a leader in transformative education for children. In 2023, the school announced its Grounded for Growth campaign, aiming to raise money and awareness for a suite of redevelopment projects that would tackle everything from a repaved parking lot to an expansive new outdoor learning campus.

While the school does incredible work for children with learning differences, they have little visibility in Pennsylvania beyond the parents of children who currently attend the campus and past school alumni. For a school with such a niche audience, they have always found it hard to raise the capital needed to expand their reach. They also had a hard time reassuring donors that the impact of their generosity was worth it, as they didn’t have a way to prove their ongoing impact.

The goal of our campaign was twofold: to provide Benchmark with the talking points necessary to raise money in an effective way and create language that will see their campaign from start to finish. To accomplish this, we crafted a way to speak of the school and its impact in a confident and celebratory way, while also dividing their fundraising goals into different subject areas that could potentially be relevant to a handful of different audiences. This took the form of multiple sets of deliverables: out-of-home banners and signage, a unique webpage, digital ads and brochures. We called this campaign “Seeds for Growth”.

When fundraising, listing all your goals in one space can be hard. Our brochure was the gateway to the project. Using our seeds for growth language, we could raise awareness for the multiplicity of projects the school needed, allowing us to tie in projects that were not as appealing to donors (like the revamped parking lot) and tie it in as a compliment to the new outdoor campus expansion.

A digital approach is necessary for a school like Benchmark, which can utilize key search terms to distribute the messaging to those who show interest in the school and use pinpoint language to try and illicit awareness and eventually, donations.

Using our key language, we designed a series of on-site banners for construction fences and light posts around the school. The goal of the verbiage was to excite students, parents and faculty about what was to come.

Like the brochure, the webpage played a critical role in the both discovery and awareness of the Grounded for Growth campaign. It was here that donors could browse the plans in full for what was to come, see directly where their impact would be made, and of course illicit donations. By telling the Benchmark School story, we gave the school the voice it needed to continue its impact now and in the future.