On June 23rd of 2022, Our Daily Bread launched our summer fundraiser, Festival of FUNds, which I was able to help design, plan, and capture content for. My name is Kate Bailey, and I am currently in my third year at the University of Cincinnati, majoring in Communication.
I had the wonderful opportunity to be Our Daily Bread’s Digital Marketing intern this summer and work beside our Director of Communications, Kat Heilman, to raise money for our beloved nonprofit. It was such a special experience seeing all these people contribute towards Our Daily Bread’s mission, even more so knowing that this was something I was able to help create.
When planning the summer fundraiser, Kat came to me in May with her idea of making this fundraiser festival themed which I thought was a great idea. That being said, I had never helped design or create something so large before, so I was both intimidated and excited by this project. We had so much to do, including naming the fundraiser, creating digital prizes, designing posters, capturing photo content, and building the fundraiser page – but we went straight to work!
I tackled the main fundraiser design and came up with the tent and ferris wheel, some of the most iconic images when you think of a festival. Though it took a decent amount of time, plenty of edits, and some good feedback from Kat, I had gotten the final product done.
On top of that, I was going to design the digital prize and food icons. I went back to working in Illustrator (a professional design program), and we had a tough battle, but in the end I remained successful with some designs I was pretty proud of.
After all the designs, I went out to local grade school festivals on the west side of Cincinnati to capture some festival photos we could use to promote the fundraiser. As the launch date got closer, Kat and I were making our final preparations to get the fundraiser ready to launch, and once June 23rd hit, the fundraiser was a go!
It was crazy to see all the work that Kat and I put into the fundraiser be published to the public for everyone to see and interact with. To see the analytics of how many people were interacting with our social media posts and visiting our website was so exciting, especially seeing how many donations we were getting whether via online or through the mail.
I am so honored to have been able to help raise money this summer for Our Daily Bread. Before we knew it, July 7th arrived and Our Daily Bread’s Festival of FUNds officially closed, marking the end of our two-week long fundraiser. It was bittersweet seeing the fundraiser we had worked hard on for weeks end, but nothing beat the joy of knowing the difference we had made.
Our goal for the fundraiser was $5,000, but we ended up raising over $8,400 (with some checks still coming in through the mail!), which will help us serve about 4,200 meals. Never could I have imagined such an amazing outcome, and I am astounded by the Our Daily Bread community that made this all possible.
I am so grateful for this opportunity that I have had in being a part of Our Daily Bread’s journey and to be able to work with Kat in making something so special!
Thanks to everyone who donated and helped support our soup kitchen.
About Kate
Kate Bailey was born and raised on the west side of Cincinnati and now attends the University of Cincinnati as a Communication major, working for certificates in PR and Digital Engagement. Outside of school and work, she loves to crochet, go thrifting, and hang out with her friends. She hopes to graduate in 2023 and pursue digital marketing for her career.
