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client case study

CASE STUDY: Sherwood Swim Club
Fundraising Campaign

Sherwood Swim Club is a member-owned 501(c)(3) nonprofit community pool that has served Huntsville, Alabama since 1965. Home of the Sherwood Sharks competitive swim and dive team, the club operates a six-lane 25-meter competition pool, a diving well, a junior pool, and recreational facilities for hundreds of Huntsville families every summer. When a failing filtration system threatened to cancel the 2026 season entirely, the board knew they needed more than a donation link — they needed a real campaign.

CHALLENGES:
  • A failing filtration system created an urgent $30,000 capital need with no existing fundraising infrastructure in place
  • No donor tier structure, no campaign identity, no recognition program, and no communication systems to build from
  • The campaign needed to reach three distinct audiences simultaneously — longtime members, alumni, and corporate sponsors — each requiring a different message and strategy
  • A hard deadline tied to the summer season opening created real urgency with no room for a slow start


rallying a community to save 60 years of summer

This was a project-based engagement built entirely around a single capital fundraising campaign: Save Our Summer. The project included:

  • Campaign strategy
  • Square donation platform build
  • Campaign identity graphics, t-shirt design, sponsor signage, and social media graphics
  • Brand Voice Creation: brand voice guide, landing page copy, email sequences, corporate fundraising letters, and social media captions

turning community pride into a fundraising movement

  • Conducted in-depth brand intelligence research, including a full SWOT analysis, to establish strategic foundations before a single word of copy was written
  • Developed a comprehensive brand voice guide to ensure consistency across every campaign touchpoint — from donor emails to social posts to corporate outreach
  • Built a five-tier giving structure with shark-themed naming that made donation levels intuitive, memorable, and share-worthy
  • Created two separate outreach tracks — one for community members, alumni, and swim families; one for Huntsville corporate sponsors — each with distinct messaging, tone, and email sequences
  • Built and configured the Square donation platform to enable seamless online giving from day one
  • Sourced all photography and video from Sherwood's own community archives, keeping the campaign visually authentic and community-driven

APPROACH

The campaign had one non-negotiable outcome: raise $30,000 to replace the pool pump and open the gates before summer. Behind that number were bigger objectives — mobilizing three distinct audiences under one cohesive campaign, building a corporate sponsorship program that could survive beyond a single season, and creating a campaign infrastructure reusable for future fundraising needs. The goal wasn't just to save one summer. It was to give Sherwood the tools to protect every summer that follows.

GOALS

Campaign Strategy:
  • Brand intelligence report — a 9-section strategic research document covering audience analysis, brand pillars, SWOT, key messages, and campaign context
  • Fundraising plan with tiered giving structure and donor math
  • Campaign launch roadmap and role/responsibility framework for the board
  • Square donation platform — fully configured with all five giving tiers
  • Updated all media outlets to reflect the fundraising brand identity with links and graphics

Copywriting & Brand Voice:
  • Brand voice guide for all campaign communications
  • Campaign landing page copy
  • Email sequence — 9 emails across two audience tracks (Community and Corporate)
  • Corporate fundraising request letters
  • Social media captions — 30+ posts across five campaign phases: pre-launch, launch week, mid-campaign, final push, and celebration
  • Press release for local media distribution

Graphic Design:
  • Full campaign identity graphics
  • Fundraising t-shirt design
  • Fence signage with sponsor logo placement for poolside display
  • Social media graphics for all 20 campaign posts across Instagram and Facebook
  • Corporate sponsor one-pager designBuilt a site structure that clearly communicates who they serve and what sets them apart
  • Collaborative optimization between copywriting and design for a cohesive result

What we created

view the Save sherwood square site

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The Save Our Summer campaign is currently in progress — and the momentum speaks for itself.

Key Achievements:
  • Raised over $20,000 toward the $30,000 goal within the first two months of the campaign
  • Two-thirds of the fundraising target secured before the summer season's peak awareness window
  • A complete campaign infrastructure — strategy, design, copy, email, social, and donation platform — built from scratch and running across every channel

Impact:
  • Corporate sponsors secured through targeted outreach letters and a dedicated giving track designed specifically for Huntsville's business community
  • A reusable campaign framework — voice guide, email templates, social content structure, and giving tiers — that positions Sherwood to fundraise more effectively in future seasons
  • Community engagement driven entirely through authentic content sourced from within the Sherwood family, reinforcing the club's identity as a place that belongs to its people

Sherwood Swim Club came to us with an urgent problem and no campaign infrastructure to solve it. In a month, we built everything they needed — from the strategy and brand voice to the graphics, copy, and donation platform — and helped them raise over $20,000 toward a goal that will keep those gates open this summer and for the next sixty years.

Results & Impact