VC Capital Campaign

Securing a New Legacy: “Our Next Century” Capital Campaign

Vancouver College, a private high, launched the “Our Next Century” capital campaign to raise $40 million for the construction of two new buildings. This initiative was driven by the need to address seismic issues in their aging facilities and to provide a safer, more modern environment for their academic and extracurricular programs.

Boyle Design was selected as a partner to develop a comprehensive multi-year campaign, including strategy, messaging, a new campaign identity, collateral, and campaign activation launch video.

How Strategic Branding and Messaging Helped Drive a $40 Million Campaign

The “Our Next Century” capital campaign was pivotal in transforming the school’s physical campus and ensuring its continued role as a leading institution for academic excellence. The campaign’s visual identity was carefully crafted, with a logo that sat under the overarching brand of Vancouver College. This identity successfully positioned the initiative as a forward-looking endeavor while honoring the school’s rich legacy.

A key component of the campaign was a launch video that effectively conveyed Vancouver College’s mission, values, and longstanding tradition of excellence. The video played an essential role in energizing the community and inspiring donations, illustrating the school’s vision for the future.

To recognize the remarkable generosity of donors, we developed an endowment signage program. This included both exterior and interior signage, a donor recognition wall, and corridor pavers engraved with individuals’ names. These elements not only honored contributions but also enhanced the sense of community.

We also integrated the school’s 7 Essential Elements into the physical space. These guiding principles of the school’s educational mission were transformed into large typographic installations placed throughout the new buildings, ensuring students encountered these values daily as integral pieces of art and inspiration within their learning environment.

A strategic recommendation was made to develop a unique visual identity and brand for the capital campaign, distinguishing it as a separate initiative with its own distinct voice and function, while still maintaining its connection to the parent brand. This approach allowed the campaign to resonate individually with its audience, ensuring both flexibility and alignment with the overarching institutional identity.

Encore: A Focused Capital Initiative

Following the success of Our Next Century, the post secondary school advanced its capital strategy with a second, purpose-built initiative: Encore.

Conceived as a distinct campaign with its own identity, Encore was created to support a $15M fundraising effort tied to the next phase of campus investment, translating long-range vision into a clear, near-term opportunity.

A New Name, A New Mark, A Singular Focus

Encore was intentionally developed as a standalone initiative — with its own name, visual identity, and digital presence — while remaining unmistakably part of the school’s ecosystem.

Boyle led the creation of: Encore campaign mark, a refined visual language aligned to the parent brand, and dedicated one-page website designed for clarity, momentum, and action. The identity balances confidence with restraint, signalling both ambition and credibility — critical in high-value capital fundraising.

A Digital Platform Built to Activate

Encore was delivered as a focused, single-page digital experience designed to communicate the opportunity quickly and convert interest into engagement, with a short-form campaign film embedded directly into the flow of the site to introduce the vision in under ninety seconds.

The site brings together a clear articulation of the project and its impact, a direct case for support, and a structure optimized for donor attention rather than browsing. Every element from written narrative to motion was designed to reduce friction between understanding the initiative and participating in it.

Strengthening Tradition and Vision. Capital Campaigns that Created Lasting Impact.

The “Our Next Century” and “Encore” campaigns successfully raised over $55 million, allowing the institution to proceed with the construction of three new state-of-the-art buildings.

The campaigns saw strong community involvement, with notable donor recognition integrated into the new buildings through custom signage, including a donor recognition wall and corridor pavers. These installations not only honored contributions but also helped to foster a sense of connection and legacy among the school’s alumni, parents, and supporters.

This comprehensive design and branding solution helped the independent school elevate its capital campaign initiatives, ensuring both the physical transformation of the campus and the continued alignment with its core educational values.

encorevc.ca

Boyle Design are very creative professionals who take the time to understand their client’s communications needs. They devote keen interest in the objective and use their creativity and judgement to develop solutions, and are always thinking about how to match artistry with the client’s requirements. When we invited Boyle Design to compete for our work in a proposal call, we knew about its reputation for quality work.

They demonstrated a deep amount of strategic thought into our project. Additionally, they are easy to work with and energetic in their approach. In response to any issue, Dennis brought determined focus, ideation, and delivered on time. We value their work and our business relationship with them.

John H. Nixon
Former President, Vancouver College