THE GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY

Inspire unprecedented generosity.

There are people out there in desperate need of help and they’re counting on you to deliver. But you can’t do it alone. How can you inspire unprecedented generosity in others at a time when everyone feels their budget tightening?

Overview

The Greater Chicago Food Depository is a not-for-profit food distribution center working to feed hundreds of thousands of hungry people throughout the Chicagoland area. They were renting warehouse space at various sites scattered throughout the city and supporting a network of 600 food pantries, shelters and soup kitchens. In just 4 years, they had increased the amount of food they distributed by 64% and could continue to grow if they could overcome the very real obstacles of cramped facilities, and inadequate storage, staging and distribution capacity. They had a vision for a better, more efficient way to serve those in need.

The Plan

They wanted to build a new warehouse - one place where they could consolidate all their efforts under one roof - to work more efficiently and economically and provide additional serves to those in need, including welfare-to-work training. However, to make their vision come to life, they would need to raise $30 million to build the 200,000 square foot facility.

They had conducted a feasibility study, and it appeared that it could be possible to reach their fundraising goal. Now they needed a strategy for their Capital Campaign, which would be a companion piece to the Annual Report. That’s when Taylor Bruce joined the team.

Getting the Real Story

We started with a review of past marketing materials and annual reports, interviews with staff, and most importantly, a tour. A tour of the warehouses stacked with corrugated boxes, the pantries, the shelters and soup kitchens, and the Kids Cafes and Producemobile distribution sites. What we saw was the raw need of the people. Not just homeless people, but people who work 16-hour days and still come up short. Seniors who are forced to choose between perscriptions and food. Children whose only hot meal is provided by GCFD. Families who have fallen on hard times due to a lost job and have never experienced hunger before. People just like you and me.

The Approach

In the past, the GCFD had focused their materials on statistics or on the volunteers and employees, the unsung heroes who were making very important contributions to keep the organization strong and help those in need. True, their role was essential, but we felt that the central focus should shift. Because when it comes right down to it, the reason all those people do what they do, the true motivation, is the people who receive the services.

Our approach was to shift the main focus to the end recipients. Those were the people whose stories needed to be told, in more depth. We needed to put a real face on hunger, and show that those people were just like you and me. We needed to make it personal, capture that emotional element of humanity, and show that any of us could find ourselves in need of the GCFD’s services, in unfortunate circumstances.

The images we saw on our tour were raw and real, and we were profoundly moved by what we experienced. We felt that same imagery would be powerful for the campaign materials themselves. And so we went back to those places and gathered real images, real quotes from people receiving the services, and put a human face on hunger.

A Brand is Born

Not only was the capital campaign extremely successful, reaching their $30 million goal in just 2 years, but a new brand image had emerged. Since 2001, the personal focus of putting a human face on hunger has been overwhelmingly well received and has helped potential donors to appreciate the business rationale of partnering with GCFD through the human experience. The have seen that the Depository is really all about “people like us, helping people like us.”

As a result of the successful Capital Campaign and Annual Reports, we were asked to partner with the GCFD to develop environmental graphics for their new facility.