Too many times, I see boxes of beautiful collateral materials for events, marketing, outreach or fundraising campaigns happily living on the floors of agency storage rooms and offices. Thousands of dollars worth of materials never see the light of day. Are they helping to move the organization's mission forward?
Collateral materials may include invitations, brochures, flyers, postcards, media kits, sponsor packets and the likes. They can be a critical part of a solid strategy to improve your community profile, better market your mission, execute splendid events and raise more money, but it's only a part of the strategy.
Organizations mistakenly spend too much time, money and focus on the materials, without enough thought to the human resources needed to execute the relationship-building part of the strategy. Recruiting and orienting staff and volunteers to personally engage the media, other volunteers, the public, donors, partners and collaborating agencies is what will advance your cause. Pretty materials can't do it alone. Engagement and involvement will make the difference.
More times than not, we recommend well-designed, clearly communicated materials developed in-house and printed on demand, so that the materials can stay fresh and relevant and so that donors, sponsors and volunteers can be added in real-time as they are recruited and the project unfolds.
Please see a few samples of good, cost-effective collateral materials that we've provided for our clients. Also visit our services page to see how we help put them into action to advance important community causes.