For public universities, it’s a constant challenge to raise money in order to support facilities, research, scholarships and more. George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia is no exception. GMU had recently launched a campaign called “Faster, Farther” to raise money for the university. The campaign successfully yielded 73,000 donors and more than $690 million raised. After completion of the campaign, GMU needed to carry the momentum forward in a more sustainable way. They needed a more evergreen message, and a cleaner website that was clearly separate from the main GMU website. George Mason reached out to Punch to help create giving.gmu.edu, a supporting website that encourages donations and showcases the impact.
Giving to GMU
Website for George Mason University’s advancement office
Solution
There were two primary challenges: 1) Create a brand separate from the George Mason University website 2) Improve UX while reorganizing all the content on the website. From start to finish, this engagement was a true merging of creative and strategy. Our process began with a research phase. In this phase, we met with GMU leadership, researched GMU history and explored similar universities and their “giving” websites. After identifying main messages and takeaways, we built a corresponding brand.
We operated within the same color palette to ensure it was clearly related to GMU, but leveraged different techniques to give the website its own visual identity. Our team then began to organize the content hierarchy of the website — thinking about the most important actions we wanted users to take and simplifying the user journey. We completely rethought the website organization and built a new way to tag and organize articles.
Scope of Work
- Brand refresh
- Website design and development
- Ongoing hosting and creative support
Results
As a result of our engagement, GMU now has a functional, modern website built specifically to drive donations and showcase impact. One of the largest improvements of the new website was making it easier to manage on the backend. Now, GMU staff can easily update news, articles, images and more — ensuring that the website is always up-to-date. With George Mason now has an accessible, contemporary website to get stakeholders excited while driving real action that can make a difference in the university’s future.
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”As a result of our engagement, GMU now has a functional, modern website built specifically to drive donations and showcase impact.
