Speaker 1: Hey there, welcome back to another edition of Digital Success Stories. I'm Steve Cross, Creative Director at iSynergy, and today we're going to be talking to Michael Ingram, the founder of Game Changers. It's an amazing nonprofit organization dedicated to the development of character skills in high school student-athletes. We'll be talking about the importance of voice and tone in your branding, all the traditional and digital elements needed to create an omni-channel experience, and how one good founder can change the lives of so many youth. So how does a nonprofit get more donors? How do you create and follow a brand-styled guide? And lastly, what makes a website engage an audience? Coming right up.

Speaker 2: My name is Michael Ingram. I'm the Executive Coach of Game Changers. Game Changers is a leadership and mentoring organization for high school student-athletes. We do different programmings to make sure that we really focus on education, as well as community service, mentoring, and just really making sure they're more well-rounded when they're ready to graduate high school and get ready for their next phase, whether it's the military, college, or wherever life takes them. So a typical day at Game Changers really is anything but typical, especially during these times with COVID. I mean, one day, it might be intense grant writing. Other times, it's really getting out there and speaking to business people and investors. So every day, there's something different. It's not just the typical, let me sit down and whatever. If you're sitting down, then you're not doing what you need to be doing because you constantly need to be moving and active, especially being an executive director or executive coach in my position. So I realized I needed to change how I did things when I started to see the same results. And it's okay to see consistency, but it should be consistent growth, in my opinion. And so for me, that growth needed to be visual, but it also needed to go back to monetary investment back into the kids. How can we best position our organization so that people can see the heart and the minds behind and really say, you know what? This organization is focused on high school student athletes, and it's not about the sports with them. It's about character development. It's about them being well-rounded. So I heard about Ice Energy actually through a mutual friend, and he connected me to Steve. And he said, listen, this guy, he has a real heart for community, sports. And so that first meeting was really just a conversation and hearing about Steve and his involvement with sports. He's a businessman. His kids also play sports. Again, these are the type of organic relationships that I really look forward to because it's not a hard sell. The first thing that I needed was a brochure, something that I could leave in confidence with that businessman or woman to open it up and see exactly what it is, to really feel our heart.

Speaker 3: We wanted to let potential donors know what Game Changers does for the community and why they should give to the organization. This was achieved by clearly laying out what all of their programs are and showing what each donor's dollars would be going to.

Speaker 2: A lot of our services, it's been me, you know, designing our own website and helping with our app and things of that nature. Being able to entrust that vision and that level of excellence to another company really kind of allowed me to kind of breathe, exhale, and know that it's going to be professionally done, executed communication like the whole nine yards.

Speaker 3: Successful nonprofit websites have to be visually appealing. If design is lacking, people might decide that they don't want to do business with you. I wanted to focus on simplicity, bold colors, and angles to make a great first impression for both the students and donors. When these visitors see a modern, clean, easy-to-read layout, they'll be more likely to stay and read the information presented. When it came to imagery, it was important to show real student-athletes in action with both high-quality still photographs and video.

Speaker 4: With designing the Game Changers website, we had to build it for multiple audiences, educating the public on the organization. The students who are interested in becoming involved with Game Changers, students already participating, potential individuals and businesses looking to become a sponsor, and sponsors following the success of the organization.

Speaker 2: Anyone that I've spoken to that has looked at our website has always been impressed. And to me, that means the world. If they can come on our website and have a level of confidence that this is a representation of the organization, for me that just matters. And so hearing each of those as a testimonial in and of itself. Would I recommend Ice Energy? 1,000%. I hope that we'll just continue again to kind of develop this relationship for years to come.