Collateral
Two years ago, Factory founder Mark Lantz joined the board of the Cleveland State University Foundation. As a double alumnus (Bachelor of Arts in English 1987, Master of Applied Communication Theory and Methodology 1990) and a Cleveland native, CSU holds a special place in his heart.
When invited to join the Foundation board, Mark said yes with a bit of a caveat. He’d focus his work on how the Foundation tells its story.
The Foundation has an audience that includes donors current and potential, corporations, nonprofits, local and regional governments and the media. It exists to raise money, forge partnerships and engage the world around CSU. Having a tight and meaningful message can help the Foundation do that work.
But what’s the message? What can the Foundation say that makes the case for writing a check, endowing a professorship, authorizing a corporate gift, creating a co-op program, sponsoring an event – or any of the diverse ways one can lend a hand to the university?
After all, Northeast Ohio has plenty of worthwhile nonprofits competing for attention, time and money. In higher ed alone, CSU competes with Case Western Reserve University, John Carroll University, Baldwin Wallace University, smaller private colleges, community colleges and another handful of state universities not far away. What makes Cleveland State different?
It’s in the headline of the brochure we created for board members and CSU’s development team:
“This Is Cleveland’s University.”
Which is a big statement. But one the facts back up. Among the educational institutions across Northeast Ohio, CSU has a unique status.
First, it’s a state university. Which gives it a mandate different than private schools have. State universities serve the geographies around them; they can’t be ivory tower schools walled off from the every day life going on beyond the campus walls.
Second, Cleveland State is big and diverse. It includes colleges of engineering, business, law, health, urban affairs, a nursing school, a film school and more.
Third, CSU is in the heart of Cleveland. It’s a downtown school where the campus integrates organically with the city around it. Within a short walk of CSU’s student center you’ll find corporate offices, factories, warehouses, retail, restaurants, nonprofits, bars, galleries, churches, modest homes, swank apartments. And more. CSU’s neighborhood is a microcosm of Greater Cleveland.
Add it up and you’ll find a university unlike any of its peer institutions:
- CSU enrolls and graduates more Clevelanders than any other college or university.
- CSU puts more people into jobs in Greater Cleveland.
- More CSU graduates call Cleveland home.
- CSU has been ranked first in Ohio for social mobility.
- CSU partners with more regional businesses, governments and nonprofits.
- CSU is home to more than 50 centers focused on matters of education, law, health, business and the arts (including the Criminology Research Center, the Center for Public History + Digital Humanities, the Center for Cybersecurity and Privacy Protection, the Center for Behavioral Health Sciences and the CSU Poetry Center).
Cleveland State is one of the few institutions with the mandate, mission, size and scope to touch the lives of nearly every man, woman and child in Northeast Ohio. CSU is Cleveland’s university.
So we created this brochure to tell that story.
Izabela Skonieczka, our head of design, did all the visual work. Mark put the copy together. And we even took some of the photos used inside the brochure.
But we didn’t stop with just a brochure.
We love collateral and think it works best when different pieces work together. So to complement the brochure we created a series of one-page handouts – focused on those centers and career-driving degree programs – that can be put in the brochure’s back pocket ahead of a prospect meeting.
We’ve got 29 of them so far. There will be more. The idea being if you’re part of the CSU development team and you’re meeting with a prospect who cares about, say, healthcare, you can select a handful of handouts focused on healthcare-related initiatives.
It’s useful information. And proof of the many ways Cleveland State – as Cleveland’s university – is uniquely and inextricably tied to the the city and region it serves.
