“Community Through Unity”
In the Spring of 2026, I took SMAD 342: Advertising Campaigns taught by Professor Matt Leech. For our final assignment, my group mates, Julia Gray, Gabby Glasco, Maddie Scassa, and I worked with United Way of Central Shenandoah Valley. The goal was to create a digital interactive campaign to encourage signups for monthly recurring donations. A few specific creative guidelines were:
Make impact feel visible or experiential
Reinforce identity (not just ask for money)
Function digitally (LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram)
Include a clear path to monthly signup
Should not feel like a donation ask
Should not feel like a sad story
Should not feel corporate
Avoid guilt, pity, and crisis messaging. Lean into pride, belonging, and quiet impact.
For the final deliverables, we were instructed to include:
Campaign Brief (PDF) including a creative brief, two personas, monthly posting schedule, color and text guidelines, 15 power words, do and do-not list, campaign hashtag set (campaign-specific and target tags), a statement on growing the campaign beyond your deliverables, and any other pertinent information the client needs.
5 motion assets (Reels,YouTube Shorts, or animated stories)
10 static assets (mix of Instagram posts, Facebook ads, and LinkedIn ads)
One pitch video (final video presentation)
The target audience of the campaign was up to our discretion, and the text and branding guidelines were also selected for us (fonts, colors, etc.). The goal was not to make a complete rebrand for UWCSV, but to refresh their social media into something more modern with the branding they already established. Details on our entire creative process from start to finish are below.
*For a better view, a link to our Figma Board that contains all project parts can be found here*
Creative Brief, Research, and Persona
To start this project off, my group and I conducted some background research on United Way Central Shenandoah Valley to put into a creative brief. We also did secondary research that involved the consideration of the “5 C’s”: Consumer, Category, Channels, Company, Competitors. Unfortunately, due to project time constraints with spring break, primary research could not be fully conducted as no one was available to visit the office in person. Although, we did more research on United Way as a whole to further understand the brand, what they do, their mission & values, etc. As for our original persona, we chose a single dad who was financially stable and in search of a community that would allow him to be a part of something bigger than himself (our second persona needed for the campaign brief will be presented later in the final deliverables). The research is presented in the images below as well as a persona we developed:
Sketches
After gathering the background research necessary to understand United Way, it was time to start developing sketches for content. The guidelines for what to sketch were pretty loose, so I made Instagram layouts, hashtag ideas, and a storyboard idea that eventually got scrapped, because we weren’t in charge of producing a new video, rather just reusing a Dropbox folder of content already available to make into new posts.
Roughs
Next it was time to turn the sketches into life (somewhat). For this project, I took lead on helping create videos with my Maddie Scassa, and creating the static Instagram posts. Originally, with the video roughs I created, I only had music and transitions, but I attempted to have the videos show lots of people involved in the United Way community, and then another one more focused on the annual Tools For Schools event that volunteers and members come together to execute. For the static Instagram posts, I made a corresponding post for Tools For Schools, announcing that their registration being open for the event to be able to receive supplies. The next rough I made was a general post showing off volunteers in action and being happy, encouraging the viewer to join United Way to be in a community of people who make the Shenandoah Valley a better place. Lastly, I made a donor testimony post. I wanted to highlight involved donors because I feel like sharing experiences will allow new viewers to connect with United Way on a more personal level. It sells the community aspect to the audience rather than just donating and never showing up. It also shows that United Way recognizes and appreciates the efforts put in by the members, encourage more people to want to possibly be the next feature.
Final Deliverables
After presenting the roughs I got some feedback that made me pivot ideas. After seeing everyone’s creative direction, I knew overall I needed to tweak the static Instagram posts needed to match the style of the LinkedIn and Facebook ads created. I also realized the copy didn’t specify recurring donations, but just vaguely mentioned community. So, moving forward, I made sure to mention phrases like “link in bio” as a call to action. I also made one of the static Instagram posts a carousel with a QR code at the end that lead to the donation page to make it have a call to action too. In terms of the videos, I got approval to also make some animated stories instead of Reels/Shorts due to lack of content variety. I continued to utilize Tools For Schools ideas to donate supplies and general donations, and then I had a story for the fun run idea we pitched, but had a subtitle to “build stamina in the community” for those who cannot attend. Lastly, I had a story post that highlighted partners and their resources/what they do for the people who get served by UWCSV. I also had a message below that mentions how donations impact both the community and UW partners. As for the fun run event, we mentioned that having a community field day event for kids, families, donors, friends, etc. would be a fun way to unify the community, and also make for great in-person donation sales and content opportunities. The full set of final deliverables is below, as well as a link to our final presentation video that is sent to United Way to hopefully select our campaign to be used on their social media platforms in the future.
The following deliverables presented below were created by Maddie, Julia, and Gabby (aside from the presentation, which was a team effort). The Facebook ads are the first gallery, the LinkedIn ads are the second, and all the Reels are below.
