Lumina Foundation is an independent, private foundation committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all. We’ve done a lot of interesting work with them over the past five years: Promoting a short film series they produced, coaching candidates for an innovation prize they sponsored, and most recently developing a brand and digital strategy for their podcast, Today’s Students, Tomorrow’s Talent—as well as animated ads to drive listeners to download and listen to the show.
We’re also one of the agency partners Lumina entrusts to help to share its stories. These agencies meet quarterly with Lumina to share insights, ask questions, and view presentations from one another on communications and strategy.
It’s an unusual approach, but one that works well for Lumina and for Well Done. “Lumina has done a really good job of fostering good relationships between all these different vendors,” said Abby Reckard, Well Done’s director of digital strategy. “It doesn’t feel competitive. They’ve tried to tap into what each firm does best. I’ve heard them call it the kitchen cabinet approach.” As an agency that, perhaps more than most, knows the importance of a well-organized kitchen, we appreciate that comparison.
For Lumina, the kitchen cabinet approach is a natural fit. They employ a lot of different strategies among a lot of different stakeholders—policymakers, social investors, researchers, employers—to drive conversation and forge connections, so it makes sense they’d want their agency partners to possess a broad range of specialties and skills.
What do we bring to the mix? If this were a cooking competition, we’d be tempted to say our specialty is…just about everything. We’re a full-service agency, after all. But a better answer, in this case, may be that we specialize in smart and effective digital strategy, clear and engaging writing, and razor-sharp design.
What Next?
If you’re interested in postsecondary education and where things are headed as we adjust to the seismic changes we’ve seen over the past year, check out some recent episodes of Today’s Students, Tomorrow’s Talent.
You’ll have plenty of company—just halfway through the current campaign, the show is seeing around 1,000 downloads per day, an increase from, on average, a dozen or so per day over most of the life of the show (they were about two years in before this most recent campaign began).
And stay tuned for much more from Well Done and Lumina Foundation. The work we’ve been promoting for them this year has included an arresting series of photo essays by Rachel Bujalski, an inspiring road trip documentary, and a fascinating new book, Human Work in the Age of Smart Machines, by Lumina President and CEO Jamie Merisotis.
We can’t wait to see what they ask us to whip up for them next.