ProPublica Fundraising Campaign: Turning Donors Into Committed Supporters

What: ProPublica s an independent, non-profit newsroom providing investigative journalism in the public interest. In 2016, as “alternative facts” and “fake news” entered the national dialogue, interest in ProPublica surged. A record number of 19,000+ contributions came in, many in the form of checks from individual donors who were not part of a database.

Goal: In 2017-18, ProPublica asked Studio Usher to design a marketing and fundraising campaign to convert this group of individual donors from emotionally charged and reactive to a committed group of supporters. Studio Usher’s strategy was to build on the feelings that originally brought them to ProPublica—concern, indignation, anger—with a sense of participation in ProPublica’s positive impact.

Notable: Studio Usher was awarded an ‘Ideas that Matter’ grant of $40,000 to develop this multi-platform marketing campaign, which included print, social media, and direct mail components, and resulted in over $500,000 in contributions. The campaign featured a powerful visual identity and tagline, compelling copywriting, and impactful SWAG that connected emotionally with the audience, focusing on donor engagement, philanthropy, and impact-driven design.