Lisa Orye
Branding & Design
Give a Square, Grow our Community
Organic Social Media Campaign to Raise $35K
Research, Strategy, Concepts, Marketing & Donor Pitch Presentations, Creative Direction, Naming, Branding, Motion Graphics, Digital Design Assets, Print Collateral
A grassroots fundraising campaign built to prove that big impact doesn't require a big budget — or a big gift. With the organization committed to keeping costs low and efforts focused on its existing community, I proposed an organic social media campaign as the path forward: one that could inspire current followers and allies to give, while creating natural opportunities to share content and grow the audience along the way.
Wide Angle Youth Media is a nonprofit in Baltimore, Maryland whose mission is cultivating and amplifying the voices of Baltimore youth through media arts. With hopes to serve more youth, the nonprofit embarked on an ambitious capital campaign to kickstart the expansion of its media lab.
Immersing myself in the purpose was as necessary as understanding the practicalities of the expansion which ultimately inspired my strategy and design. The how became just as important as the why. I was captured by the idea that 721 sq. ft. could make such a big impact and also, by the energy, learning, and life-changing moments that were already happening in every square foot of the current space. I wanted to bring the project and the purpose together using the power of storytelling.
Research into the program's social media following revealed an audience of families, colleagues, and community supporters. The strategy started with a simple question — what keeps people from giving? The answer, I found, often came down to scale: the ask, or the need itself, can feel too large for any one person to make a difference. Grandmothers, neighbors, students — I wanted every one of them to feel like they could do something big with something small.
That idea became Give a Square — a giving structure built around the square foot, where a contribution as small as $35 could claim a piece of impact. Working with the team at WAYM, we brought the concept to life through their Network for Good platform, making giving as easy as a single click. The campaign turned a daunting ask into a collective one: no gift too small, no supporter too far removed to matter.
Bringing the program's youth into the campaign made the effort feel like it belonged to the whole community, not just to donors. Each cohort set its own square-foot goal, tracked their progress, and distributed customizable, branded campaign cards — printed in-house — to family, teachers, and friends. Their pride in watching the goal come to life became part of the story the campaign told.
Every square foot of WAYM was already activated with education, engaging discussion, mentorship, cohorts, and workforce development. My strategy became a quest to inspire people to give a square with a storytelling approach.
The visual identity was designed for flexibility above all. The square mark itself became the engine of the campaign — functioning as a standalone logo, breaking apart and animating for motion content, holding the organization's logo for profile use, and overlaying photo and video content across every platform.
