Lessons Learned from Putting Grantees First
Edward W. Hazen Foundation
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Celebrating 20 Years of Building Courageous Leaders
Overview
Nestled in Seattle’s Central District, Seattle Girls’ School (SGS) is an independent middle school educating girls and gender expansive students. Driven by their mission to inspire and develop courageous leaders, SGS challenges and engages students in subjects ranging from social justice to science and technology to the arts and humanities.
Challenge
SGS was founded in 2001 by a small group of Seattle parents. Fast forward two decades, and SGS is a thriving community of students, parents, educators, donors, and alums focused on social justice and leadership development. As the school prepared to enter its 20th year in 2021, they were presented with the challenge of telling their inspiring story and celebrating this huge milestone with their students, families, and alums.
Work
Minerva Strategies first began working with SGS in spring of 2020, where we developed a strong understanding of what makes the school vibrant and unique. To commemorate the important milestone of a 20th anniversary and build authentic connections across the school community, Minerva crafted a strategic messaging framework focused on themes of past, present, and future. We also collaborated with SGS to develop a detailed communication plan that outlined goals, strategies, and proposed tactics for the 20th year celebration. The centerpiece of the plan was a content strategy to showcase diverse SGS voices on digital platforms and engage with the SGS community (past and present) on social media. We worked with a designer to develop a special 20th anniversary brand toolkit, logo, and fundraising collateral.
SGS 20 year anniversary logo
Result
Our team interviewed dozens of SGS community members—from alums to founding members of the faculty—and developed a series called “20 Stories for 20 Years.” To supplement the interviews, we created a “digital story collector tool” for students and their families to submit photos and memories, and we scoured old yearbooks for visuals and historic tidbits. The resulting stories were published on SGS’s blog and leveraged across digital platforms including social media and email. Social posts that featured diverse perspectives from the SGS community performed well on the school’s Facebook and Instagram, sparking robust interaction among students, alums, and supporters. To take SGS’s unique perspective and voice beyond the school community, we worked with SGS Head of School Brenda Leaks to place an Op-Ed in The Seattle Times at the start of the 20th anniversary year.
In 2022, SGS opened the doors to a brand-new campus, and the Minerva team was engaged again to help promote the opening and ribbon-cutting event through both owned and earned media channels. This resulted in positive media coverage, including an in-depth, in-studio interview between Brenda Leaks and TreaAnna Holiday with Converge Media.
Minerva Strategies was a strong and integral partner for SGS during our anniversary year. They thoughtfully helped us craft a communications approach that not only highlighted our mission, but was a statement of our mission, as well. For a school centered on leadership and voice, the Minerva approach created the dual opportunity for us to both invite in and share out the voices of our community members. Highly personal and highly effective!
Brenda Leaks
Head of School, Seattle Girls' School