Branding & Web Design for Children's Nonprofit Org
Featured Review-
Branding Other Digital Marketing Web Design
- $50,000 to $199,999
- Jan. 2020 - Ongoing
- Quality
- 5.0
- Schedule
- 5.0
- Cost
- 5.0
- Willing to Refer
- 5.0
“Of all the vendor relationships that I’ve had, this has been one of the most overwhelmingly positive experiences.”
- Other industries
- Tampa, Florida
- 51-200 Employees
- Phone Interview
- Verified
Big Sea offers digital marketing, branding, and web design services for a children’s nonprofit. Their major projects have included refreshing the organization’s main site and strengthening brand consistency.
Not only is the team well-organized, but they also put in the effort to understand their client’s needs. Big Sea has guided the internal team through marketing tasks, creating video tutorials to foster more independence and delivering strong creatives. This makes them great partners for nonprofits.
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
BACKGROUND
Introduce your business and what you do there.
Champions for Children is a nonprofit based in Tampa, Florida that prevents child abuse through family education services. I’m the director of development and communications, which means I oversee fundraising as well as our external relationships and marketing communications.
OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE
What challenge were you trying to address with Big Sea?
Prior to a couple of years ago, marketing wasn’t a focus for us. We’d started to make some time investments in marketing but didn’t have much of a budget. Not to mention, our website and social media were pretty weak — even our overall messaging lacked brand consistency. We eventually asked Big Sea to help us with our branding and web design needs.
SOLUTION
What was the scope of their involvement?
Big Sea has created some initial language, content templates, and strategies to expand our community’s brand awareness. They were also tasked with building up our internal capacity to continue our improved marketing efforts after the engagement was complete.
We loved working with them so much that we decided to engage them on overhauling our website. That’s been the biggest project so far, and we’ve just completed it. Our second main project has been developing a formal case for support for our organization as well as strategizing and implementing our end-of-the-year fundraising appeal.
What is the team composition?
We work with a core team across St. Pete, Florida and Colorado. Zak (Office Director) is our project manager. She’s the one who runs the show. There’s also Ben (VP of Marketing) who handles our strategy, a designer, and a content specialist. The extended team consists of SEO specialists and web developers who work behind the scenes.
The CEO who initiated the engagement paired us up with this team because some of the marketing experts had previously worked in nonprofits like ours. That deep experience and personal understanding of our challenges made all the difference.
How did you come to work with Big Sea?
We got to know Big Sea because we applied for and won a $30,000 in-kind services grant from them (called their “Wavemakers Grant”). The grant covers one year of services, and we’re about half-way through.
When we applied, I remember thinking that it was a long shot. I told another marketing person on an unrelated project that we’d won, and they assured us of how lucky we were.
How much have you invested with them?
The initial grant was worth $30,000 but was provided pro bono. We then put in another $25,000 for the website and a small additional project. They’ve given us a great nonprofit rate so far.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working with them in January 2020 and are still in touch. We actually have a small additional project that we’re looking to start with them in 2021.
RESULTS & FEEDBACK
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
Big Sea is excellent about anticipating our concerns, and they’ve taken the time to learn why we have them in the first place. From there, they work within our comfort zone (occasionally pushing us out of it where appropriate) to get us to the right place in terms of marketing best practices. It’s about helping us think through our problems so that we can shape and then meet our goals.
They’re also considerate of our needs and budget constraints as a nonprofit. Sometimes, rather than doing something themselves, they’ll make a video to show me how I can do something myself so that I can have the option of completing the task independently.
Finally, Big Sea understands the complex relationships involved in a nonprofit with diverse stakeholders. I have a lot of stakeholders to deal with in the background such as board members who care about the outcome of our efforts. Not only has their team anticipated those needs, but they’ve also worked with me to make sure that I have the proper tools and deliverables at my disposal to satisfy my board members.
How did Big Sea perform from a project management standpoint?
They’re extremely well-organized, using one-week sprints to complete tasks. Zak is on every call, taking notes on everyone’s comments so that we can all focus on the content of the work itself. She’s also great at following up quickly. All communication is run through her, which can seem indirect. But, they do it this way to ensure that one person is staying on top of everything.
During the last five days of the website project, I started to communicate more directly with individual team members, which ended up working really well, too. That shows that they’re able to shift their project management style over the course of a project to meet client needs. In fact, we had that project up and running in under three months with days to spare.
I also appreciate that they draw knowledge from their various teams. For example, there have been a couple of times when they’d tell us that they haven’t done a task before, but another team of theirs is working with a client with a similar problem. They’d then lean on their internal talent to collect information and feedback, which would benefit us.
What did you find most impressive about them?
Of all the vendor relationships that I’ve had, this has been one of the most overwhelmingly positive experiences. I’ve been thrilled about it!
They’ve adapted well to working virtually — probably because they have teams in St. Pete and Colorado. As a result, they have a tight grasp on collaborative tools that allow for successful remote work.
They’re fantastic at the creative side of things. From digital marketing strategy to creative design, content development, and brand messaging, they take a thoughtful approach. Even our board present who is a retired, high-powered communications executive came away impressed with them.
Are there any areas they could improve?
When minor things come up with any vendor, I always care a lot less about what happened and more about how someone responds to it.
There was one minor issue that we encountered, which was nobody’s fault, but we still had to address it. One of the members of their extended team was handling our paid advertising on our site. But, because they were more behind-the-scenes, I didn’t necessarily know what they were up to all the time.
I would’ve liked them to have communicated important progress done outside of the core team to us a little more strongly. After I brought it up, Big Sea’s team was non-defensive, took a solutions-oriented approach, and treated it seriously to fix it.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
Before you engage them, you should do your own work and have your initial goals set up. You should also make sure that you have the staff time to dedicate. They are really organized, but you need to be there, too, if you’re going to stay on top of things.
One of the reasons they picked us for the grant was because we specifically expressed that we wanted them to help us build our own marketing capacity. They did a lot of video tutorials for us so that we could do things on our own, but we wouldn’t have learned anything if we hadn’t dedicated the staff time. That’s the only way they could’ve provided the right impact for us.
I’m not sure that it’s worth booking any marketing firm if you’re just looking for them to do everything for you because it doesn’t work that way.
RATINGS
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Quality
5.0Service & Deliverables
-
Schedule
5.0On time / deadlines
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Cost
5.0Value / within estimates
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Willing to Refer
5.0NPS
