At times I don’t believe in myself, but then people convince me, I can do this. I have the right skills and academic level to do this. “
– Karlos Coleman, Senior at Lift for Life Academy
Stories with Impact.
Sometimes all it takes is someone coming alongside you and saying — “You can do this; you are good enough.” That was the case for Karlos, a senior at Lift for Life Academy (LFLA). Lift for Life Academy was founded by Marshall Cohen in 2000 and was the first independent charter school to open in the City of St. Louis. Besides excelling at academics, the charter school focuses on the “whole child” by providing individualized teaching, support services and even drivers education classes. The student body is made up of students from 40 different St. Louis districts, many living in urban poverty, but with a 94% graduation rate, LFLA demonstrates that education is the key to realizing dreams.
For Karlos, LFLA has had a huge impact on his future. With the dedicated help of teachers he has developed a love for mathematics and engineering and hopes to graduate one day with a degree in Computer Science. He has dreams and now he also has the tools needed to make them a reality. Karlos is just one of the countless success stories LFLA has to tell and we had the privilege of helping them share it through two new fundraising campaign videos.
Challenge.
StoryTrack was asked to create two multipurpose films that were featured at their annual Celebrating Success Fashion Show fundraiser (an incredible student led fashion show showcasing clothing designed and made in the LFLA fashion program) to distribute through online and email marketing.
The first film showcased Karlos, who was selected as the student speaker for the event, and the second was an overview video about LFLA that encourages donor participation. And so the challenge emerged: create two films that work together but serve different purposes.
At the beginning of any project we always ask ourselves “What does success look like for this film?” Sometimes the answer is simply to tell a good story, other times the goal is more tangible. In this case, it was to raise funds and share a story of how LFLA has made an impact on kids in the St. Louis.
Solution.
So how did we do it? Well, we’re not going to give away all of our secrets but we’ll give you an idea of how we came up with the concepts to create two functional education campaign videos. Here are a few steps of our process:
Step 1: We establish goals.
Step 2: We find the right people. Yes, we call it “casting.”
Step 3: We assess our client’s current media assets.
We’ve had the privilege of working with LFLA before and were able to utilize an extensive asset library that we’ve developed over the years. By repurposing footage we are able to extend the lifespan of our work. We strategically work with our partners to assess the visual assets they already have, evaluate how we can use them and then we build content from there.
Step 4: We bring a talented and experienced team to every situation.
We conduct interviews, film b-roll and capture still photographs that all support and meet the specific marketing needs of our client. For LFLA this meant creating fundraising campaign videos as well as strategic social media content.
Results.
The end results were two meaningful films shown during the Lift for Life Academy fashion show to an audience of over 500 individuals. LFLA met above and beyond their fundraising goals to support college and career-focused programming for students and we couldn’t be more thrilled to have been a part of making it all happen.
Like What You See?
StoryTrack is a boutique media agency that specializes in visual storytelling. We curate pieces that serve multiple functions across various digital channels and always strive to create work that has longevity so our clients are able to have relevant, useful content that stands the test of time. Interested in having StoryTrack create a compelling content for your upcoming campaign? Give us a call or send us an email. We’d love to hear from you.
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