Brand Strategy

Breathing new life into hallowed institutions

Our Sunday Visitor was an established Church publishing institution with a grant program that they found ineffective. Our challenge was to change that by establishing a new search for excellent ideas from Catholic innovators — for 3 grand prizes of $100,000 each.

The Sherwood Fellows team led a strategy Sprint where we designed a contest that would:

• Attract applications from a broad range of people, especially those historically underrepresented in the Church

• Encourage transformative growth throughout the process, offering value to applicants as they worked

• Foster a culture of innovation in the Catholic Church — no small task considering this 2000 year old institution is not exactly known for its pioneering spirit

Digital Marketing

Along with the Sherwood Fellows team, I helped write the script for a video ad (and acted in it!) and created a plan for a digital marketing campaign that would encourage applicants to be part of the legacy of Catholic innovation, including writing comedic, historic podcast segments like this.

We worked to create a brand identity that upended people’s preconceived notions of what a Catholic grant program could look like. Inspired by Archetypal Hero brands like Nike, I wrote copy and wireframed a website that would be inspiring and grounded, calling applicants on to greatness. We received over 300 applications.

You can see the current OSV Challenge website here; some changes have been made since my original creation to reflect the second year of the contest.

Building Community

A culture of collaboration

To promote collaboration among the applicants — in radical opposition to the culture of competition that many contests foster — we set up a Slack channel where people could ask questions, get feedback, and get to know each other.

This, to me, was the biggest victory of the Challenge: that over 250 contestants who were competing for 3 prizes decided to help each other and cheer each other on.

Curriculum Creation

Mentorship and growth

I spearheaded the creation of a curriculum for the 24 semifinalists, a 50-page business development guide called The Innovator’s Guide to the Semifinalist Galaxy. It included instructions for the round and exercises to sharpen their business plans, pitches, and personal growth.

I also contacted 8 prominent business leaders and set up mentoring calls between them and the semifinalists. While sitting in on these calls, I watched the semifinalists’ perspectives grow; their pitches improved immensely during the course of these mentorship sessions.

Winners Announced

A victory for innovation

After a Demo Day over Zoom, 3 winners were announced. I was so proud that these ideas represented a wide swath of the Catholic population, especially underrepresented groups in the mainstream Church. The winners were:

• A family formation ministry

• A ministry for LGBTQ+ Catholics

• A podcast network for Latino Catholics

I could not have been more proud of the trails this contest blazed, and I believe it is already having ripple effects in the Church at large, making it a more welcoming and innovative space.