Nonprofit
Reaching Philly Families Across Multiple Touchpoints
When Children's Scholarship Fund Philadelphia needed to promote their K-8 scholarship lottery in a big way, they brought in Maven to reach families in specific zip codes across multiple touchpoints.
Background: Children’s Scholarship Fund Philadelphia (CSFP) changes lives by providing scholarship funding for Philadelphia families to choose a tuition-based school that meets their student’s educational needs. It is the largest and most diverse provider of K-8th scholarship support in Pennsylvania, focusing on the highest-need students in the lowest-achieving schools in the city. All CSFP scholarships are need-based and awarded by random lottery, which is open to families from mid-September through March 1 for scholarships awarded the following school year.
Challenge: CSFP tapped Maven to create a targeted campaign, focused on five specific zip codes that historically received low application rates. The organization also wanted to target applicants based on student’s ages and parental status.
Strategy:
Heading into the 2024-2025 scholarship lottery season, Maven created an integrated campaign consisting of traditional media relations and paid social campaigns, designed to compliment each other as well as amplify CSFP’s messaging and call to action.
Maven developed new creative content – including advertising copy, vibrant graphics, and engaging videos – targeting key demographics and zip codes throughout Philadelphia. With frequent collaboration with the CSFP team, Maven strategically adapted zip code targeting and assets throughout the lottery season to increase outreach to areas with a low number of applications.
In tandem with paid social media efforts, Maven drafted written materials around CSFP’s lottery milestones, including a partner school fair, priority lottery drawing, and family surprise day. Maven also dedicated efforts to positioning Keisha Jordan, CSFP’s President and CEO, as a prominent thought leader in Philadelphia on school choice. Resulting media coverage ran in outlets that had never covered the nonprofit before.
Results: The paid social media campaign for CSFP’s 2024-2025 lottery earned over 25,000 link clicks and over 3.4 million impressions. Across seven identified zip codes with low applications, Maven’s integrated approach supported a 63% average increase in applications throughout the duration of the general lottery, with one zip code achieving a 97% increase. Eleven percent of CSFP families reported that they heard about CSFP from social media, nearly doubling the number reported the previous year (6%).
Maven secured over 20 placements across digital platforms, radio shows, and print publications, including WURD Radio, Generocity, Northeast Times, South Philly Review, Kensington Voice, Chestnut Hill Local, MyChesCo, Southwest Globe Times, and Germantown Info Hub.