Willow Valley Communities Charitable Foundation

Willow Valley Communities is an award-winning, 55+ retirement community located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, that has long-believed that the senior living industry can do better when it comes to providing the best quality of life for persons living with dementia and their caregivers. In 2017, they set out to change that, founding the Willow Valley Communities Charitable Foundation (WVCCF) whose first project was to launch a capital campaign for a life-changing Memory Center to serve the Lancaster community.

The Foundation came to Fig Industries to craft the story behind the campaign and build an impactful Case for Support to aid in their fundraising efforts. With more than six years of partnership on this project, the FI team is honored to have walked alongside the WVCCF team through each phase of this important campaign, which set out to raise a minimum of $20 million of philanthropic support for the construction of the Center and its permanent endowment.

Initial conversations with the Foundation team sparked our idea for the naming of the campaign—This is Personal. Our team was moved by the reality that we’ve all been touched in some way by dementia and memory loss, and the This is Personal theme was woven throughout the Case for Support design. To further reinforce this theme, we pitched the concept of photographing actual Willow Valley Communities residents, ensuring they told a story of dignity and hope in the way they were captured. These poignant black and white portraits became the foundation of the Case for Support paired with stories of those affected by dementia and memory loss which were also included in the Case—all coming together to advocate for the need of the Center.

After several years of the ‘Quiet Phase’ of fundraising, the Foundation once again partnered with Fig Industries to plan, design, and execute the launch of the campaign and its Public Phase. Our team crafted a sub brand for this phase called The Hope Chest, taking careful consideration to complement this branding with This is Personal materials and the Willow Valley Communities brand. Using the idea of a hope chest to store away things for the future and a butterfly motif to symbolize hope, our team worked with videography partners to create memory capsule videos where stakeholders could share their stories and hopes for the Memory Center. These videos were then displayed alongside the This is Personal portraits and a custom designed progress meter for the campaign launch event.

With the minimum goal met in 2023 and the official groundbreaking in April 2024, we began to strategize with the Foundation on their future philanthropic efforts. Caritas, which means ‘love’ in Latin, is a comprehensive guide we designed that outlines the multiple channels of philanthropic giving available to continue supporting the work of the WVCCF. We once again art directed the portraits of key donors and volunteers of the Foundation showcased throughout the brochure, using them as the anchor in our dynamic brochure design and continuing to keep in mind the personal feel that all materials should encompass. The benefit of our lasting partnership with the Willow Valley Communities Charitable Foundation ensures our team has a large-scale view of the brand so each new project and phase feels connected, complementary, and authentic.

Our team was honored to attend and photograph the official groundbreaking for the Memory Center in April 2024—marking an incredible milestone for this multi-year project and partnership.