When a milestone needs to move people, not just celebrate them.
For a quarter century, the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation has backed exceptional students from families with financial need, and its Alumni have gone on to lead in nearly every field imaginable.
The Foundation wanted its 25th anniversary to be more than a look back. It wanted the milestone to change how its community worked together, starting with its first alumni-hosted internship program, which aimed to place 125 scholars by summer 2025. The alumni are proud and loyal, but this was a new kind of request. The Foundation needed a message that would turn the deep goodwill into specific action, and a story that could carry emerging momentum through the achievement of the goal and beyond.
services delivered
“Connected by Purpose”
We started by listening to Foundation leadership and staff, then went to Scholars Weekend to hear directly from alumni and current scholars. One idea kept coming up: the Cooke community runs on connection. Alumni didn’t describe the Foundation as a scholarship they once received. They described it as a community and a network they want to remain part of.
That insight shaped the campaign playbook and the outreach that followed. Hosting an intern became a way to pay forward what the community had given them.
For the anniversary, we told that story through the audience’s eyes. We interviewed a dozen alumni and built Connected by Purpose, a 36-page publication organized around three themes: making today’s world better, creating opportunity for others, and building beyond imagination. We handled the strategy, research, and writing and partnered with the Foundation’s design firm, VOICES, to bring it to life.