Award-Winning Fundraising Campaigns: RNL and Our Campus Partners Receive Seven Gold Medals

RNL’s award-winning creative team wrote this post, sharing their insights on messaging and design. The team has won more than 100 advertising awards for fundraising campaigns.

Fourteen entries. Fourteen awards. For the 40th Annual Educational Advertising Awards, RNL’s creative fundraising campaigns stood out, with every one of our entries winning in their categories. And half won gold!

Being recognized by the largest educational advertising awards in the country speaks to RNL’s mastery of higher education fundraising best practices, as well as our creative team’s expertise and collaboration with our campus partners: the judges review for “creativity, marketing execution and message impact.” These campus partners range from West to East Coast, from small-but-mighty to multi-campus. The creative and fundraising tactics behind these seven award-winning campaigns are equally wide-ranging:

Bethune-Cookman University: Giving Day Total Fund Raising/Development Campaign

As an extension of Bethune-Cookman University’s advancement team, RNL developed Giving Day mail and emails inviting donors to honor Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune’s legacy. These eye-catching creative components showcased B-CU’s dynamic 120-year brand and emphasized the history of proud investments in Wildcat Nation.

Bennett College: CYE Total Fund Raising/Development Campaign

Bennett College serves a broad variety of students, the diversity of which was highlighted in this calendar year-end campaign across mail, email and digital ads. The appeal warmly celebrated Bennett’s donors and alumnae to cultivate connection, while communicating donor impact by demonstrating how their investment in today’s Bennett Belles creates a more equitable future.

Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania: End of Year Total Fund Raising/Development Campaign

In RNL’s first year of partnering with Commonwealth University Foundation to solicit funds for three campuses—Bloomsburg, Lock Haven and Mansfield—RNL honed in on what makes each campus unique. For the Fall and Calendar Year-End appeals, our investigative writer identified feature stories to resonate with each unique audience while advancing each campus’s priority focus. Our design director created seasonal pieces, including holiday cards worthy of display and GivingTuesday 2024 designs with branding balanced between the campus and the global day of philanthropy.

Linfield University: Homecoming Special Event Campaign

In our third year of fundraising work with Linfield University, RNL helped develop the first Homecoming appeal of our partnership. Appealing to a 50-year reunion alumni segment, a vintage background texture and historic mascot photo inserted nostalgia. Our writer developed copy in the voice of Mack the Wildcat, and our designer created Mack’s signature from scratch, riding the energy of Homecoming to invite alumni support in a fun, engaging way.

Wittenberg University: Calendar Year End Total Digital Marketing Program

The holidays are the most active time for fundraising, and RNL’s emails and digital ads for Wittenberg University pierced through the noise of the season. Leveraging Witt’s primary red and secondary teal colors, the campaign presents a strong, immediately recognizable brand while calling to mind Ohio winters with graphics and background photos from RNL’s Adobe stock account, expanding on the available assets and adding depth, texture and oodles of visual interest.

West Virginia University: Donor Renewal Total Fund Raising/Development Campaign

Donors have been clear: Knowing how their generosity makes an impact increases their likelihood to continue investing in an institution. That’s exactly what these pieces did for West Virginia University’s donors. Through a mix of visually appealing quotes, facts and links to video stories, the WVU community saw how important their contribution is—and as a token of gratitude and an investment in retention, they received a window cling acknowledging their donor status for that year, which RNL has created with WVU annually since 2020.

West Virginia University: FYE Direct Mail Appeal

During a time of transition, West Virginia University’s fiscal year end letter showcased how the university’s legacy set the stage for the future. With gradients and strategic placements, the RNL designer used bold brand colors to aesthetically balance the black-and-white photos and a timeline of historical milestones. With a broad audience spanning education, health care and community programs, the language and layout inclusively touches on a variety of key points to resonate with all.