Mt. SAC Foundation & Alumni Association
Brand Audit & Refresh
When a client comes to us with marketing and branding concerns, we often start with a full audit of all existing assets, tactics, and resources. We also interview or survey key stakeholders and research competitors. From there, we make recommendations for any necessary updates, but if it ain’t broke, we don’t fix it.
So, that’s exactly what we did when the Mt. San Antonio Community College Foundation & Alumni Association reached out to us a few years ago. We looked at what they were already doing well and identified areas where we could help them increase their impact in the Mt. SAC community and increase alumni engagement.
After surveying approximately 200 members of the Mt. SAC community to gauge the general perception of Mt. SAC and the Foundation & Alumni Association.
We found that:
99% of alumni respondents state they’re willing to recommend the college to a friend.
94% of alumni rated their overall experience at Mt. SAC as either above average or excellent.
0% described their experience as below average or unsatisfactory.
That was all great news! However, when asked about the Foundation and Alumni Association 73% struggled to recall any specific stories about how the Foundation helped them or someone they know. So, our task was clear. We needed to help tell the story of what the Foundation does and how they do it.
Our solution
We started by creating distinct branding for the foundation that would complement the college’s branding. We also provided social media support to help showcase the programs, scholarships, and initiatives supported by the Foundation, and to truly highlight the important work the foundation supports, we worked with students, staff, and alumni to tell their stories through video.
Results
Website
Working with the college, we determined that a new website would be the best way to house the content the Foundation wanted to create to showcase their work and the alumni stories. In a two-week on-site installation, our team built a dynamic, responsive, and accessible website where we could help tell student, staff, donor, and alumni stories. We’ve continued to work with the Foundation to update the site over the past four years.
Social Media Support
Based on the initial brand audit, we created a social strategy for the Foundation to use their social media accounts in two important ways:
To draw visitors to the new site by linking to alumni stories and events
To celebrate alumni successes that had been reported in various news outlets
Results: 78K reached in 2020.
Video Production:
Whenever possible, we encourage the Mt. SAC community to tell their own stories through video. The drive-thru food pantry on campus is one of those stories. It represents a triumph of the College’s campus and community partners and an example of how quickly the College responded to the COVID-19 public health crisis.
Because of the pandemic, we weren’t able to travel to Walnut to get video footage of the food pantry so the Foundation arranged for Mt. SAC alum and videographer Anthony Flores to shoot the footage (from a safe distance!) so CPU could work with the Foundation team to produce the final video.
Visit the mtsacfoundation.org to see our work in action →