Project Overview 

IWK Health (IWK) is a major women’s and children’s hospital and trauma centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia that provides care to youth, children and women from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and beyond.  

IWK Foundation, the public, not-for-profit fundraising arm of IWK Health, supports the Hospital and raises funds for its urgent priority needs. The Foundation itself is the preeminent fundraising movement for children and women’s healthcare in the Maritimes and is the largest and most sophisticated fundraising organization on Canada’s East Coast. 

In 2023, IWK Foundation approached Intent’s East Coast office to assist them with creating a formal brand identity and marketing strategy for their monthly donor club. 

Insights  

Intent developed an extensive Donor Acquisition strategy that outlined the best approach for developing, stewarding, and converting Atlantic Canadians into monthly donors. This strategy outlined the need for a custom brand and messaging that would make donors feel that their contributions were meaningful, recognized, and impactful. Developing a new brand would also give the Foundation clear, concise, and consistent message to deliver to potential donors. 

As part of this work, we recognized the overwhelming success of IWK’s philanthropy work, but also outlined the incredible opportunity provided by opportunity for monthly giving. 

We discovered through our research that it would be ideal to leverage the inherent connection that Maritimers have to their topography. You cannot separate Maritimers from the ocean, and all the historical, economic, and geographic connections to it. We wanted people to feel a sense of belonging and warmth in joining the monthly giving club, so we leveraged an idea people already felt a connection with. 

Solutions  

We developed the “Beacons” name, and its tagline “Giving lights the way” as a response to this insight and designed a logo that referenced a lighthouse. Lighthouses provide a beacon to sailors to guide safe passage to harbour, and we wanted to make this connection: IWK Foundation will be a guardian of their monthly donation, ensuring that it made its way safely to impact care of women and children in Maritime Canada. The name and tagline also tie back to IWK itself, and reminds donors and the Maritime community at large that the hospital is a beacon of hope at times that can be difficult to navigate.  

Our design is intentionally aligned with the IWK brand, utilizing their colours and fonts so Beacons feels part of the IWK brand family, but with a distinct enough brand for itself. 

As part of this work, Intent created a full brand package including brand guidelines, and a set of launch campaign assets including social media templates, advertising templates, signage and promotional graphics, and more. 

Our work continues today with IWK Foundation, and we are honoured to be a creative partner for this venerable Canadian brand.