Gates Foundation Postsecondary Education

The Client Goal

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation supports vital causes across all spectrums of need, on a global scale. One focus area the foundation is passionate about is education. With regards to higher education in particular, they believe that major student-centric change now and into the future is key for postsecondary education to help students reach their full potential – closing attainment gaps is at the forefront of that change. To bring both peer organizations and potential donors into the conversation, The Gates Foundation needed a visual campaign that could clearly articulate the challenges currently stymying postsecondary education in the United States, and detail the specific changes proposed to bring about new successes. The end goal was to increase adoption of interventions and approaches for increasing postsecondary access and attainment.

The Solution

After consulting with the Gates Foundation on their goals and audiences, we recommended a campaign made up of a motion graphic, 2 interactive pieces, and 4 static infographics that could disseminate this critical information to the right people, in the right way, at the right time. To start, we created a unique style guide for the campaign that would ensure visual consistency: it was important for the pieces to be cohesive and carry a professional tone, and through previous work with the Foundation we had established guidelines for K-12 visual communication pieces that would help inform this aesthetic. The shortcomings of our higher education system are a serious matter, and the viewers for these pieces needed to understand the severity of the issue without being bogged down in over-explanations on issues that they already understood at an intermediate level. We then built each piece of the campaign to work together and create a diverse set of resources for the Foundation to rely on. They were very happy with the end result and are building out means of distribution for the work.