Modern IDENTITY // CPf Summerstage

CPf Summerstage

Background

City Parks Foundation (CPF), a non-profit organization, came to us with a problem. Each year, CPF reaches more than 600,000 people in New York City through the free arts, sports, and education programs they offer in parks across the city, including SummerStage. Despite their omnipresence, CPF had no public recognition as an organization independent of the City and State in both structure and funding. CPF relies entirely on donations from corporate and individual sponsors. However, since the economic downturn had greatly diminished their corporate resources, CPF needed to reach out to the public for support. Partnering with Constellation NY, we had a two-fold mission: Create awareness of City Parks Foundation and the vast breadth of their offerings, and illuminate their need for donations from the private sector.

Solution

We initiated the program by reorganizing and restructuring the CPF website. We made sure the story of CPF was told on the homepage, including its dependence on donations. We included a huge red DONATE NOW button to drive in the point. In the center of the homepage we placed a huge map of all the boroughs (artwork provided by artist Jenny Beorkrem) showing in a very graphic way that CPF’s programs are in ALL the boroughs of New York City. We then assigned a large button to each of the three primary areas of activity (SummerStage, Sports, and Education) to allow the viewer several ways to access the information: by location or by activity. Within each area the viewer can easily click down into specialized views based on age or area of interest. Once the CPF site was designed and approved, we moved on to the website and branding of SummerStage. It was critical that CPF be tied clearly to its most visible program. This initiative coincided with the 25th anniversary of Summerstage, and an expansion of the SummerStage brand to include Music, Theatre and Dance events in parks throughout the city, not just at the main stage in Central Park. We created an identity for SummerStage that would work with the overall branding of the CPF site - but would reflect the unique voice and flavor of the SummerStage brand. In addition to the websites, we branded an array of assets for SummerStage which encompassed print marketing, on-site signage for the stages and entrances, T-shirts for event personnel, special event tickets, merchandise, and animation for its most ambitious, multi-city advertising campaign.

Result

Since launching in May 2010, the SummerStage website has been receiving an average of 7500 visits per day, with more than 250,000 hits to date. More than 30% of hits to the CPF homepage were driven from the SummerStage page. Memberships and donations are rising, encouraged by the website’s user-friendly portal. All eight of their fundraising concerts enjoyed sold-out ticket sales. For the first time in history, SummerStage events went live in parks across all five boroughs of New York City, increasing City Parks Foundation’s exposure and broadcasting their message.