Project Summary
Making Waves Education Foundation is a Bay Area nonprofit committed to closing opportunity gaps through academic coaching, financial literacy, and career support for students from middle school through college. Its charter school, Making Waves Academy, prepares students for success in higher education and beyond.
With such a wide mission spanning both the Foundation and the Academy, Making Waves needed expert design support to communicate their impact clearly and consistently—starting with separate annual reports for the Foundation and the Academy.
Each report needed to reflect its unique programs while still feeling aligned under the same mission and visual identity.
Making Waves already had the essentials: a strong mission, powerful stories, and meaningful results. But they still needed a cohesive design approach that:
- Engaged donors, families, and students
- Maintained a unified look across both reports
- Elevated impact data and student voices
Across two years, we created four consecutive annual reports for Making Waves, deepening the storytelling and sharpening the visuals year after year.
What we delivered:
Four Story-Forward Annual Reports: Polished, cohesive reports that elevated student voices and each organization’s role in long-term student success.
Impact Data Visualization: Clear charts and graphics that helped donors quickly understand outcomes across programs and pathways.
Student-Centered Layouts: Design choices that kept real student stories and lived experiences at the center.
Mission-Aligned Visual Identity: A unified look and feel that reflected the energy and ambition behind Making Waves’ commitment to equity and opportunity.
Print + Digital Flexibility: Reports optimized for both print and digital sharing, making it easy for students, families, and supporters to engage anywhere.
Social + Email Promo Assets: On-brand graphics and copy-ready layouts to share report highlights across social and email.
Repurposed Donor One-Pager: A quick, compelling takeaway that distilled their model and accomplishments for donor conversations.
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