The Challenge
Death with Dignity, the nonprofit, hadn’t contacted their mail-only audience in months. Since much of this audience doesn’t have any other form of interaction with the organization, this was something we needed to fix quickly.
We had a host of legislative and organizational updates to share— and had shared, but only online. I took on the responsibility of designing and developing the entire newsletter, from cover to cover.
donor newsletter
What do we need?
The newsletter would cover three main topics.
First, an article from a coworker about a moving patient story we had written recently, and to great success.
Second, legislative updates from across the country. Many states had unprecedented success, even if their laws or amendments didn’t fully pass, and it’s important to include these successes to show how the movement is enacting change, bit by bit.
Finally, we would include an article from our president, Szelena Gray, about a series of videos we had recently produced, starring a group of assemblymembers and senators from New York.
front & back
We had a handful of concepts for the front cover, but in the end, we settled on a photo of our storyteller, Ann Keller, to lead into the article about her story on the first inside page.
The back cover uses our standard newsletter template, but with an added quote from Assemblymember Chantel Jackson, who featured in one of our legislator videos.
This article, written by social worker Elia Lawatsch, tells the story of Ann Keller, who traveled across state lines in order to access Death with Dignity. She told us about the entire process, the support of her family, and many details about her experience with dying.
Ann had terminal cancer, and still viewed the world like a great adventure. She went on dives and climbed volcanoes, until finally leaving for Oregon— and told us about every step.
The wide shot of one of Ann’s adventures at the top, along with Elia’s signature at the bottom, really help her story pop and reflect that very human connection that we always strive to make.
ann’s story
state updates
Originally, we were going to use a graphic I created for our legislative email update, but over time we decided to make something new instead.
This chart is a combination of one of the unused drafts we developed for the Annual Report (below right), and the original charts I created (below left). The end result is informative, but not too boring, and neatly sums up several months of legislation.
legislator videos
This article, written by our president, Szelena Gray, talks about the massive steps forward we took in New York, including more connections with lawmakers all over the state.
Most significant for us was a series of videos we produced, featuring numerous assembly members and senators telling their stories about Death with Dignity and what it means to them.
It’s an extremely engaging, well-written piece, so I wanted to accentuate it by including not only a photo from those legislator videos (Chantel Jackson, bottom), but also from Karines Reyes, an assemblymember and nurse.
This combination connects both the work we did with the people behind it, and adds a human element to the story— along with some extra color.
final version
In the end, I’m very happy with how this brochure came out.
It went through countless revisions and updates, but the end result was concise, snappy, and a great update to help get mail-only users engaged with the organization again.
I appreciated the opportunity to work on this project and practice creating files that are ready for print instead of the web. I work in online materials often, and this allowed me to ensure my print process was as smooth as could be.