Document Design  |  In-House

Document Design

Proposals & Annual Reports

Almost every major gift at UVU is secured through a document. My team will occasionally make a case statement to get the ball rolling, and we often make a proposal to outline the impact of a gift. The deal isn’t final until a gift agreement is signed, but these documents make the factual and emotional case that inspires a donor to make a gift.

Having been designing documents since high school (and having improved quite a bit from the flashy magazine spreads I made back then), I am often asked to lead out on document design. I have created pieces for prospective gifts from $10,000 to $30 million.

When creating a document, I balance the need to inform and provide statistics with the emotional case. The facts show what the gift will do, but the visual story told through layout and imagery shows the legacy the gift will create. There are elements that remain consistent throughout these pieces, but each one is customized to the donor based on their interests and motivators.

Person holding a proposal with a university builiding and star trails on it Two pages of a report with images on the left page and text on the right page
Two pages of a proposal with a web of connected programs. There are photos in circles and text beneath them. Two pages of a proposal with an image of a woman in a chair surrounded by greenery covering the whole thing. There is text on the upper right side.
Report cover with hundreds of images of students from the bottom left to the top right. Proposal cover with colorful images from pride events and the text 'building community' Report cover with images arranged in petals, growing out from the center.

Event Documents

President's Scholarship Ball

Fundraising and stewardship events build affinity between the institution and the donors. While many events have short program cards, I do occasionally create longer ones. The document below was created for the 2024 President’s Scholarship Ball, an annual event that showcases student excellence and raises funds for our academic merit scholarship.

The program included student testimonials, facts about that year’s cohort of presidential scholars, and showcased the impact a gift will have on students. This year, we raised a record $1.8 million, which is enough to fund 560 semesters of tuition.

Click here to view the full digital program
Image of a program on a desk. The front page has a circular die cut which reveals the page beneath.
Two pages from a program with a green starry background and white text on both pages Two pages from a program with images on the right and text throughout.
Two pages from a program with a green starry background and boxes containing statistics throughout

EverGREEN Society Event

The UVU EverGREEN Society is a group of individuals who have given, or represent corporations and foundations who have given, large philanthropic gifts to the university. We invite them to campus for biannual events to help them stay connected with the institution and its mission.

For an event highlighting our international students, I created the program as a passport. This introduced them to each of the students and gave them a way to note each one they talked to, leading to more student-donor engagement.

Person presenting a passport as another person adds a sticker to a page.
A page from the passport with text, a headshot, and information about the student featured. Two pages from a program with a list of speakers and text on the right.
Several passports sitting in a basket.