Interested in submitting your creations to help Create the Greater Good? If so, send us an email!
Please be sure to include your name, email, organization, a sample or samples of the work as well as a short description which we can add to your posting.
NOTE: If you want people to be able to contact you through our blog please indicate that it's okay to include your contact info otherwise we won't include it.
Please note that files must be in one of these formats and under 300K in size: JPG, PNG, TIFF, AI, PSD or GIF
wishart is seriously considering the possible publication of a book about excellence in marketing communications in the fundraising sector. We intend to make it a picture book with lots of amazing ideas which will inspire people as never before! In order to test the viability of this idea, we have launched this blog in which we hope people will share their best ideas and link us to the best ideas of others.
If you're like us and you don't want the time you waste to, um, go to waste, consider visiting www.FreeRice.com.
FreeRice.com is an on-line vocabulary game which donates your winnings to the less fortunate. Each time you identify the correct definition to a word from a list of four options, you feed someone ten grains of rice. The grains add up and when you're done the site donates the equivalent amount of real rice to a starving family through the United Nations World Food Program. You play, they eat. And because sponsors pay for the banner ads it doesn't cost you a thing.
We like the concept in principle but wish the site would offer 100 grains of rice for each correct answer and not just ten. Realistically, we don't think people are going to go to the website daily and spend the time it will take to get the 110 correct answers necessary to fill the bowl of 1,100 grains (which is the equivalent of one full serving of rice). Eleven correct answers we'd aim for every day, not 110.
That said, if you're one that feels guilty for the time you spend on daily crosswords or Sudoku, consider increasing your vocabulary and help end hunger at the same time. And while you're at it, we need your help. What the heck does 'aphonia' mean anyway?!
Posted on 20 Jan 2010
We're horrified by what's happened in haiti and we want to help. But how? Canada's federal government announced yesterday that it's earmarking up to $50 million to match Canadians' donations to charities aiding relief efforts in earthquake-ravaged Haiti. Minister of International Co-operation Bev Oda said yesterday morning the government will match the contributions of individuals to eligible Canadian charitable organizations in support of humanitarian and recovery efforts in response to the earthquake, up to a total of $50 million. The money contributed would be managed through the Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund, run by the Canadian International Development Agency, said Oda according to CBC News reports. We encourage you to make a sizable gift TODAY knowing that it will do twice as much to bring desperately needed help. Our prayers go out to everyone in Haiti. May help come fast to them.
A few years ago we heard a marketing guru boast that “Harley Davidson doesn’t sell motorcycles; it sells 43-year-old accountants the opportunity to dress up in black leather, drive through small towns and scare people.” What are you selling?
When creating new work on behalf of one of our clients we first do what we can to make it personal. We read voraciously on the subject. We ask questions. We spend hours searching the internet for gold nuggets of critical insight which are hidden in blogs or videos postings, in images, essays and opinions.
We ask who amongst our staff has a connection and we delve deeply into what might motivate someone to give.
In my hometown an older couple without children has given millions to support the local hospitals. They've given so much in fact that the cancer center now bears their name on the building in huge capital letters! Given that the husband is a consummate smoker and is rarely seen in public without smoking a cigarette or puffing on a stogie, it seems to me that theirs is less a generous gift and more a shrewd investment. That’s a bit catty, perhaps, and I mean them no disrespect but, as one senior fundraiser said, “I don't so much believe in people’s generosity as I believe in benevolent self interest.”
Years ago you no doubt read the story of Tom Sawyer. If so, you’ll no doubt recall a charming story which opens chapter two and which began, “Saturday morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and fresh and brimming with life…. Cardiff Hill… was green with vegetation, and it lay just far enough away to seem a Delectable Land, dreamy, reposeful, and inviting.” Into this scene walks a young boy named Tom who “appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden.”
Do any study and you will surely find that the primary reason for giving to any charity is almost always personal. Take for example the late Murphy and his wife Helen Hull who donated $10 million to Humber River Regional Hospital. As announced with a full-page ad in The Toronto Star on Saturday, June 6, 2009, “Murphy Hull was one of Canada's pre-eminent real estate developers, and one of Humber River Regional Hospital’s most dedicated community champions. Forty years ago Mr. Hull's drive to make a real difference in the lives of his fellow citizens resulted in the founding of the York-Finch Hospital.
Donors aren’t dogs, they’re cats! Dogs come when you call them. Cats and donor prospects alike will get back to you but only if and when it suits them.
As man’s best friend, dogs willingly fetch the paper or your slippers on command. But how often is it that when you ask a donor for a lead gift, they offer something more akin to a dead mouse; the promise of funding a project or program which not only isn’t in your proposal, it’s not even in your plans?
When bad - really, really bad - things happen to good people, there’s a place to go where it’s not your fault. There’s a place where you’re safe. That place is Nina’s Place. Named for Nina de Villiers, a 19-year old who was abducted and murdered while jogging near her home in Burlington, Nina’s Place is a sexual assault, domestic violence crisis centre where people can go for immediate and compassionate care.
Good news for those named Garcia, Patel, Tremblay, Williams and Zhang (and everyone else, come to think of it)
Your name is your brand.
Your name is, therefore, your most valuable gift.
Your name does more than simply identify you. It tells people who you are and what you stand for. It signifies your reputation, prestige, character, history, values, accomplishments and aspirations. Your name encapsulates the meaning of your life. Your name is your most valuable possession. So you just don’t give it away willy nilly.
Frequently we do work for ‘competing’ colleges, social service organizations and the like and yet the work is vastly different one to the other. The real difference is that at wishart we don’t cut corners or try to adapt one failed design to another organization. We don’t do it for two reasons: 1) it’s wrong and 2) it wouldn’t be right.
While churches are only too happy to open their doors to new parishioners, it’s a sad reality that many congregations are unwilling or unable to open their minds and hearts to the new demands, ideas and expectations of those who seek to join their flock. Eglinton St George’s United Church is a welcome exception and we sought to celebrate this fact with a campaign that was every bit as open as they are. The Church was open to this campaign idea not just because it didn’t look “churchy” but also because they could take the photos themselves.
AGENCY: wishart WEBSITE: www.wishart.net CREATIVE DIRECTOR: John VanDuzer PHOTOGRAPHY: Client CLIENT: Eglinton St. George’s United Church
Posted on 10 Aug 2009
The reason you write the first cheque to a charitable organization is always personal. That’s great if you’re a charity that meets the needs of prospective donors who feel so inclined to ‘give back’ or even ‘pay it forward.’ But how do you connect with those who are otherwise unconnected with your charity and, more to the point, how do you create communications materials which will be used by different people with different needs and in different cities across the country?
So there I am wandering through the LCBO the other night and what do I see but a grungy hang tag on an otherwise beautiful bottle of Henry of Pelham wine. Printed on recycled brown paper was "The dirty hands project" with a cool message on the flip side. They claim "when you drink a 750 ml bottle of Henry of Pelham wine you preserve one square metre of Ontario's Greenbelt in the Niagara Peninsula for another year. How? By putting the land to it's best use in sustainable agriculture.... It's like renting the land but getting a delicious bottle of wine for your effort." (Gotta love that logic!)
We walk less than we did as kids. And our kids walk less than we did when we were their ages. Sure, we’re busy, always running here and there. And, yes, regardless of where we were born or where we live now, we’ve become a car culture.
Ask a simple question, "Which innovations have changed people's lives most dramatically during the last three decades?" and you might be surprised by some of the answers. Earlier this year The New York Times asked a panel of judges at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (Sunday NY Times, March 8, 2009, Sunday Business, page 2) what are the "Life changers - The top innovations of the last 30 years?" While I could take issue with the fact that many of the innovations pre-date 1979 (for example, the internet was founded in the late sixties and email was one of its first applications) it's nonetheless clear that their impact in the past three decades has been significant.
Here is the list of the twenty top innovations with thirteen of them shown in bold type because at wishart we agree that they have directly impacted our business. Moreover, we see items 14-20 really growing in influence in the years to come:
Giving is the new getting. City Kidz is one of the most remarkable organizations we’ve ever worked with because they give countless people the opportunity to get connected with the inner city kids they’re more than happy to help.
One of wishart’s most effective and enduring advertising campaigns has been for Toronto’s Metropolitan United Church. It is proof of our ability and commitment to create great work year after year... after year!
Back in 2007, TAXI - an ad agency lauded for its work for WestJet, Telus and Koodoo Mobile - celebrated 15 years of success. Rather than have a birthday bash or run ads in trade journals extolling their virtues, they did something remarkable - they gave birth to a really cool idea - one which I hope inspires companies both large and small to contribute to the greater good.
The client insisted on us using a picture of The Barenaked Ladies in posters for a hospital fundraiser. The images, sent to us as email attachments, were too small to use. Of course, there wasn’t much time or much money. So we went with this cheeky, in-house sketch.
We are what we spend. We are consumed by consumption. And we are worried that we can’t do enough to save the world before it’s too late. ‘Selling’ something to people that they say they want but that they don’t want to pay for a cleaner, more sustainable planet: That’s the task that has faced wishart since it accepted the challenge of helping the City of Hamilton meet its ambitious waste diversion goals.
Today’s Family is a dream client insofar as they are committed to producing fabulous resources that celebrate the joy of childhood. Insisting that every photograph feature only their children and caregivers, the look wishart has been able to create for Today’s Family is without equal.
