Advertising Showcase: Building Community Support to Elevate Children’s Health Care
Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU and Children’s Hospital Foundation share a marketing and fundraising story shaped by grit, creativity, and a deep sense of community ownership.
More than a century ago, during the polio epidemic, a small free clinic for children opened in Richmond, Virginia. It quickly became a community mission.
That same spirit resurfaced in 2019, when Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU (CHoR) and Children’s Hospital Foundation were preparing for the largest capital campaign in their history: raising support for what would become the 500,000-square-foot Children’s Tower.
At the time, the Foundation was raising $6 million a year, mostly from short-term transactional fundraising. The region needed a dedicated children’s hospital worthy of the care already happening inside CHoR, but the team needed a new strategy to get there.
Lauren Moore, president and CEO, Children’s Hospital Foundation
According to Lauren Moore, who became president and CEO of Children’s Hospital Foundation in March 2019, the challenge was clear: “The Foundation wasn’t built for the kind of relationship-driven fundraising a project like this required. To succeed, we had to transform the entire way we worked while also launching the campaign. We were truly building the plane while we were flying it.”
Then COVID hit.
Overnight, donor meetings evaporated. Families were isolated. Businesses didn’t know if they would survive the month. Yet, the mission did not slow down. “We had to find new ways to reach people at a time when they weren’t even seeing their own grandkids, let alone a development officer,” recalls Moore.
Read on to see what came next: a coordinated effort between philanthropy and marketing and the ad campaign that brought their shared story to life — and be sure to watch the campaign’s humorous, heartwarming, and emotional TV spots.