Benaroya Research Institute
The Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason (BRI) is one of the nation’s leading immunology research centers and has made breakthrough discoveries about type 1 diabetes and many other diseases. Like many research institutes, they need to translate this complicated work into stories and content that educates their community and motivates their donors.
Since 2016, Message Lab has helped BRI define, launch and maintain a variety of content channels. Our work has included:
- Conducting audience research and developing content strategies to guide BRI’s donor newsletter and blog.
- Conducting a reader survey to gather feedback from BRI’s audience. We used this feedback to adjust BRI’s content in ways that better matched donors’ interests.
- Working with BRI’s fundraising partners (the Virginia Mason Foundation) on donor profile stories that steward donors and showcase why philanthropy is critical to work.
- Managing BRI’s quarterly donor publication through every step. This starts with partnering with BRI’s communications team to develop story ideas. Then we interview researchers, physicians and donors; write stories and guide them through review; and oversee layout and design.
- Writing blog posts that highlight BRI’s discoveries, scientists and donors.
BRI recently updated its brand and is in the process of incorporating that into a new website design and overhaul. The Message Lab team is developing key strategy tools – including a voice and tone guide – that will guide the content for this project. As part of this, we are helping BRI rethink how donor-focused content fits into the site, and we are writing the new donor channels and pages.
