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Explore Our Impact
We’re proud to partner with some of the most iconic brands on the planet.
We’re even prouder to help produce results that are reshaping lives and communities.
Making Great Futures Possible
Boys & Girls Clubs of America needed help communicating its life-changing mission to inspire more people to support the organization. With an integrated direct marketing program in its infancy stages, an inactive email list and underperforming digital channels, Boys & Girls Clubs of America turned to Round Square and Streetlight Digital to optimize its program, grow online revenue and help make great futures possible for more kids who need us most.
Little did anyone know that after just one month of joining forces, COVID-19 would change everything. This forced many of the 4,000 Clubs across the country to temporarily close doors and find new ways to serve kids, families and communities. Round Square quickly created content and campaigns that elevated the human service elements that Clubs provide, including meals and basic necessities to survive, child care for essential workers, and devices and support to participate in virtual school. By treating donors and prospects as partners, we were able to cultivate supporters with high impact, timely and relevant stories that related to their own lives.
Meanwhile, our friends at Streetlight Digital began optimizing digital advertising, the Google Ad Grant, the website and more. The result was integrated, year-round storytelling and fundraising that blended data, technology and human emotions to drive meaningful action.
In our first year of working together, Round Square and Streetlight Digital ushered in transformational results:
- 114% increase in total online revenue, including an 86% increase in revenue during Q4 and a 71% increase in new donors
- 117% increase in pageviews to News & Stories, optimized to convert readers to sign up for email or donate
- A positive return on ad spend every month since assuming oversight
The team has described our work as transformational, helping the organization “become more relevant” to prospects and donors, with “an incredible response nationwide.” Round Square continued to provide integrated direct marketing and communications strategy support to Boys & Girls Clubs of America for three years, exceeding benchmarks and projections.
Conquering Arthritis in the Workplace
Although arthritis is the leading cause of disability in America, the Arthritis Foundation was struggling to get companies outside of the pharmaceutical industry to recognize its relevance and importance.
Qualitative interviews with business leaders revealed a lack of awareness that 1 in 4 employees are living and working with arthritis and its severe physical and mental health impact.
Knowing that corporate support is essential to conquer arthritis, the Arthritis Foundation hired Round Square to help tell and sell the arthritis story to engage more companies to support its mission.
Because most companies don’t see arthritis as the relevant and urgent issue it is, we needed to show corporate America how, if unaddressed, arthritis could impact their bottom line while adding value before asking for value.
Together with Arthritis Foundation staff, we created a new program called Arthritis@Work. This free program allows staff and volunteers to get a foot in the door with companies by offering turnkey tools and resources to support their employees as part of their existing corporate wellness program.
In addition to developing the name and logo for the program, we created a corporate sales deck, pitch materials, office promotional materials, staff engagement toolkits and more.
In just four months after launching the Arthritis@Work program, the Arthritis Foundation had signed on 35 companies, including brands like Aflac, FedEx, L’Oréal, Lowe’s, Panera and more. Today, nearly 100 partners are on board, with a goal to recruit 200 more in the year ahead.
Staff and volunteers responsible for identifying, securing and stewarding corporate partnerships have said this is the “best program they’ve had” at the Foundation, with one relationship manager saying the Arthritis@Work program has enabled her to finally get out of the lobby and into a meeting room with corporate decision-makers.
Round Square continues to provide communications and marketing strategy to support corporate engagement at the Arthritis Foundation.
Strengthening Nonprofits & Communities
The Nonprofit Leadership Center (NLC) is a unique nonprofit that supports the growth and impact of other nonprofits by providing dozens of professional development classes, a conference, small-group learning cohorts and custom solutions each year.
In 2019, NLC turned to Round Square to elevate its communications to the same level of excellence as its services. The organization needed full-service communications and marketing support to better connect with its audience, grow its community, increase event participation, and position the organization as a leader in the nonprofit sector.
After conducting qualitative interviews and extensive research, Round Square developed and implemented a strategic marketing communications plan that includes:
- A year-round content calendar to drive and guide all communications
- Strategic blog content based on keyword research and audience insights
- Revamped email strategy, creative and messaging
- Social media strategy
- Google Ad Grant management and expansion
- Digital advertising
- Staff, trainer and board engagement
- Brand identity visual refresh
- Ongoing thought leadership
- Impact strategy and measurement
With Round Square as its long-time communications partner, NLC has seen transformational growth during the past five years:
- 205% increase in monthly website visits
- More than 50% of event registrations now come from communications channels managed by Round Square
- 102% increase in class size
- 48% increase in total event participants and a 50% increase in participating organizations
- Largest annual conference and graduate certificate program in organization’s history
- Highest revenue year in NLC’s 20+-year history
- 1,375% increase in NLC’s LinkedIn community, with nearly 50,000 followers to date
Round Square continues to provide strategic content marketing and day-to-day marketing communications support to drive NLC’s business objectives and continued growth.
Hope for Her
The Women’s Resource Center (a name shared by hundreds of organizations) was in a tiny space, forced to turn away hundreds of women who needed them due to space, capacity and resource constraints. They needed to refresh and clarify their identity if they wanted to raise the necessary funds to reach more women and children. They turned to Round Square for help.
After conducting extensive qualitative research and assessing the marketplace opportunities, Round Square revitalized the Women’s Resource Center brand, including a new name, logo and identity, brand strategy, and messaging.
- The new name, Hope for Her, now literally conveys what they do.
- The house and woman inside the logo suggest they provide a safe place for women experiencing crisis and trauma. The lines reflect a warm embrace that portrays their loving and compassionate approach where guests are never a number, but the lines never close, indicating that every woman can break free from her current circumstances.
- The house is also an arrow pointing upward, indicating both their belief in what’s possible and their faith-based foundation.
- The changing colors of the icon from light to dark purple reflect the transformation that happens for guests.
- The letters forming the words “Hope” and “Her” are uppercase to symbolize strength and grounding but use a delicate font to showcase femininity. The cursive “for” introduces a warm and personal feel.
Thanks in part to a revitalized brand that more clearly convey’s their mission and has compelled more supporters to donate, Hope for Her opened a new 10,000 square-foot facility in 2021 to provide a safe place for more women experiencing crisis and trauma to find the strength, skills and support they need to rebuild their best lives. Hope for Her anticipates being able to serve 400 more women per month.
Phelan-McDermid Syndrome Foundation
Phelan-McDermid syndrome is a rare genetic disorder that compromises many critical functions in a person’s body — from learning and communicating to eating and sleeping. Children with this complex medical condition are born with a genetic difference on their 22nd chromosome that causes intellectual and physical disabilities that require long-term care and medical attention. Currently, there are no treatments or cures.
Because most people, including medical professionals, have never heard of Phelan-McDermid syndrome and because it is difficult to explain, the Phelan-McDermid Syndrome Foundation hired Round Square to help clarify its brand identity and messaging to drive increased awareness and fundraising.
Extensive research revealed that clarifying the Foundation’s brand required better defining and “branding” the syndrome itself, elevating its important role in advancing research, and visually portraying its warm, family-like approach.
Round Square developed a new brand strategy for the Foundation, including how to better explain what Phelan-McDermid syndrome is in lay-friendly, emotionally connective language. We also created new brand identity guidelines that transformed a fragmented family of sub-brands into a seamless creative system, introducing new, warmer secondary colors and extending the crescents and dots from the Foundation’s existing logo as graphic assets, including photo frames, way-finding devices and dotted lines. This included a new graphic inspired by the genetic difference on chromosome 22 to create background patterns that visually highlight its research leadership.
The Phelan-McDermid Syndrome Foundation has just begun to implement the new brand strategy and identity and has hired a communications director to bring it to life across all its channels. The leadership team described Round Square’s work as “transformative for the organization.”
“Round Square is the most outstanding and productive consultant I’ve had the honor of engaging in more than 40 years of work.” Ronni Blumenthal, CEO, Phelan-McDermid Syndrome