Phoebe Health is familiar with the creative donor recognition displays and tailored philanthropic placemaking experiences Heurista provides. Through various iterations, we’ve been working with the Phoebe Foundation since 1996 and have had the joy of working on several Phoebe campuses. New leadership, a growing service area, and the need to engage audiences remotely during the pandemic paved the way for an experiment – truly virtual donor recognition. 

Launched in early 2021, Phoebe’s customized Philanthrosphere® site, phoebephilanthropy.com, lets the community experience stories, projects, and people associated with the Phoebe Family. The content is available online, allowing users to explore and share it anywhere, any time.

In the past, being part of a community was often defined by shared physical space. Hospital patients, families, staff, and donors associated their experience of that space with their experience of the physical spaces – the campus, the buildings, and the spaces within. Messaging to the community was often directed to a physical location, be it a display on the lobby wall or a mailing to a specific set of zip codes. Today, however, the internet and social media have allowed us to expand and be more flexible with our definition of community. We are able to reach our constituents where they are, rather than expecting them to come to us.

Donor recognition and philanthropic storytelling are now taking advantage of these virtual networks. Technology and high quality digital storytelling are allowing us to expand the opportunities to engage and appreciate the communities around us.

Digital donor recognition: began in the mid-1990’s and allowed for the presentation of list and graphics on screens located at a nonprofits’ campus and often incorporated into a traditional donor wall. Digital donor recognition can be still or animated. Likewise, touchscreens may be used to allow for viewer interaction.

Online recognition: a listing of donor names and/or stories on an organization’s website. The format usually follows the traditions established for a printed annual report.

Virtual donor recognition: fully interactive content that can be accessed from any web-enabled device and presented on-campus electronic screens. It gives remote access to content that is conceptually linked to on campus content and may include tours and video as well as links to other online resources.

What makes Philanthrosphere® different?

No one wants a complicated, robust, DIY software. Ease of use saves time and headaches down the line. Digital storytelling for your philanthropic community should be versatile and interactive– maintainable on the back-end, captivating on the front-end. In addition, it needs to seamlessly align with your other online brand guidelines. It should look like a continuation of your work, reminding people of your brand and mission. Philanthrosphere® is designed with good stewardship practices integrated into its straight-forward, easy-to-use interface. With the added benefit of unlimited space for scalability, you’ve gained not only ease of access beyond your physical location, but the ability to build fully virtual displays and experiences specific to your digital storytelling platform.

How were the Phoebe Foundation’s messages translated into virtual experiences using Philanthrosphere®?

Digital storytelling isn’t one-size-fits-all work. In fact, the experience should feel tailored to your audience and align with your long-term needs. The Phoebe Foundation has an amazing community. Not only are the donors some of the folks in the greater Albany area, many of the hospital workers themselves take part in amazing giving incentives! To capture their story (past, present, and future work), each of the different features within Philanthrosphere® were utilized to create a complete virtual campus tour experience. Check out the features highlighted below to see snippets of the Phoebe Foundation’s customized digital storytelling platform.

Branded Landing Pages

Customization encompasses more than your logo. When a community member visits your virtual storytelling platform, the landing page should feel like a seamless continuation of your organization’s identity. The font, color scheme, and overall style should be built to align perfectly with your brand for an authentic virtual experience.

Loops

Showcase your most current information, share community news, or highlight a recent event. Loops can hold any combination of the features listed here. Present virtually through your Philanthrosphere® website or on screens throughout your campus. Easily update the content in real-time with the admin tool.

Billboards

Keep visitor’s interest with eye-catching images that serve as a screensaver or image loop on a large format screen. These images can include graphics, text and photography along with scrolling lists. Incorporate message-specific landing pages for visitors accessing the system through email or social media links.

Profiles

Profiles can showcase one person, a couple or family, a company, or even a collectible object…whatever is at the center of your community. The profile includes a name, an image, a description, and various opportunities to link to other features.

Stories

Create content with text, photos, video and embedded lists. These can be highlighted in a featured stories menu, presented in lists, or linked to profiles to create a library of interconnected information. Users self-guide through the content, making choices from the links you create.

Categories

Group information to encourage exploration. Lead users from the landing page to each subcategory, give a brief description to set the context, and present links or lists to profiles and stories. Once they’re making choices, users will continue forward through the interconnected content, rarely returning to the Home menu.

Maps

Build interactive tours of content associated with an image, such as a map of a place, a photograph of a display, or a diagram to explain a concept. This tool offers versatile linking between images and other content, including profiles, stories, lists, or other maps.

Lists

Manually curate by linking content to a story/billboard or have them dynamically created from data stored within the system. Use details on the profiles, such as area of interest, geography, gift amounts, years of service, or other reportable data to create lists that group profiles with like behaviors or areas of interest.

Displays

Want an added benefit to viewing a physical display through a screen? How about clickable locations that link you to featured stories, profiles, maps, or other displays? With an interactive display, your organization can story-tell from anywhere.

No matter where the donors and Phoebe community at large may be physically, every member has the ability to experience the growth and continued progress of the Hospital system. With a new CEO and new Foundation, it only made all-the-more sense welcome in a new interconnected story-telling platform, designed exactly for Phoebe.

To learn more about the benefits of a virtual storytelling platform, check out the article: Digital Donor Recognition: 6 Considerations Before Going Digital.

Check out how these clients are making use of Philanthrosphere®! Click on the logos to link through to the live sites.

Full Sites:

PS Loops: