60th Freedom Fund – Event Materials
folder_sharedClient Project for Coatesville Area Branch NAACPI’m thrilled to have created materials for the Coatesville Area Branch’s 60th Annual Freedom Fund Banquet, which took place in October, 2023. The Freedom Fund is a critical annual fundraiser for the NAACP branches, sponsoring social programs, community initiatives, and more. The Coatesville Area Branch uses this fundraiser to honour community members & legends from the Coatesville area, and talk about their objectives, events, and accomplishments over the year.
The theme for 2023 was “You Are The Power: VOTE”. I based the visual identity of the event around a classic US “I voted” sticker or pin. The stickers differ between areas, but many consist of red, white, and blue stripes, and reference the stars and stripes from the US flag. The Freedom Fund identity is inherently connected to the US flag and the American Dream, and my goal was to adapt this and tie it to voting specifically. The stripes in my design wave in the wind like cloth to emphasize the reference to the flag, and bring some life and motion into the design.
This is my second year doing visual identity & materials for the Coatesville Area Branch of the NAACP’s Freedom Fund Banquet, and it’s been compelling to expand on my work from last year, and to contribute to the event.
This year we started sending out sponsorship forms in January, and I created a full flyer in April. I set up a landing page, my client and I set up the EventBrite listing. Once the ads started coming in, I started work on the Souvenir Booklet, which you can see below.
The Coatesville Area Branch of the NAACP organized in South Coatesville, Pennsylvania, in 1938. They’ve been working to “ensure the political, educational, social, and economic quality of rights to all persons, and to eliminate race-based discrimination” (chesconaacp.org) ever since.
Visual Identity
Flyer
Digital Materials
Landing Page
I created an event landing page on the client’s website. This was a central place to collect people who wanted to know more about the event & help them to do so - links went out in emails, physical media had QR codes & URLs. It held descriptions on how to purchase tickets, sponsor the event, or purchase ads in the booklet.
I added a site-wide banner linking to it, for anyone visiting the site.
This year I deployed the same anonymized analytics I use to track traffic on my website, and measured an up to 27% conversion rate, although I am unable to eliminate visits from inside my client’s organization. Conversions in this case would indicate visitors who went on to visit the EventBrite, or download the ad or sponsorship forms, indicating some interest in supporting or attending the event.
This year the landing page also included a section for downloading the event flyer and/or sharing the landing page via Facebook or E-Mail to spread the word.
Souvenir Booklet
The souvenir booklet is a central piece of the event - in addition to laying out the program, it houses bios for the event’s honourees, information about the branch, and information about all of the sponsors, local businesses, and organizations who support the event. In some way, it’s part of how attendees engage with the event both as it it runs, flipping through it as the MC introduces honourees, reading it in slow moments, and after the event ends.
I call it a souvenir booklet because these are a keepsake of the event - I help have them professionally printed in full colour on sturdy paper, and it’s my understanding that attendees keep them over time. In the months since the event I’ve seen the program physically brought to meetings as reference for my client’s 2023, and for future events, banquets, and/ or activities. It blindsides me every time.
This year I’m proud we were able to expand on our previous booklets to spread on the events run by the branch over the course of the year, and a page on the branch’s Juneteenth celebrations. I’ve also taken more of a publication design approach to the biographies, with columns and pullquotes.
Last Year
Last year I created the 59th Freedom Fund Gala Materials.
