Ready to take a leap?Let’s talk.
For business and new client enquiries, please contact Brad Usherwood at:
busherwood@yieldbranding.com
416-565-7666
Community Foundations of Canada is the national network for Canada’s 191 community foundations. Together they help Canadians invest in making their communities better places to live, work and play. More than 90 per cent of Canadian communities have access to a community foundation — from our largest cities to our smallest towns. Collectively CFC holds combined assets of more than $5.8 billion and we’ve put hundreds of millions back into communities over our 98-year history.
While Community Foundations of Canada was a large charity dating back more than 75 years with $3 billion+ in assets, and more than 191 local community foundations, few outside the organization appreciated its value, knew what it did or even knew it existed.
You can do more when you help out close to home.
Yield Branding recommended a multi-year communications strategy to leverage the power of the 190+ individual community foundations versus promoting the national CFC brand. This would create a movement, spreading the importance of giving back to your community in whatever way you could versus dollars and cents.The campaign focus was ‘community based’ tapping into the latent desire of all people to give back to their community a piece of what the community has done for them.
The branding campaign was sponsored by the 191 communities rather than CFC head office to differentiate it from the big national charities, and illustrate the fact that it was a grass roots organization built by the efforts of many.A critical awareness and engagement tool was the TV advertising campaign that took the form of an anthem, based on spoken word poetry which lyrically told the 191 community story.
We ran a contest to engage local community members, where they could win the leading role in the commercial shoot by submitting their rendition of the anthem.The lyrics of the anthem translated into print advertising that was customizable in each community foundation to celebrate a hero.
Social media was a critical pillar of the communications strategy given its ability to link community foundations, tell many different stories and generate PR while building momentum for the movement. The “191” Facebook site served as the repository for the local community foundations to post examples of their engagement in the campaign.
Dozens and dozens of local communities across Canada got on board and ran their own co-branded ads in print and social media. We generated 75 million impressions in the first three months exclusively with donated media.
And an additional 65,000 views of the TV spot on YouTube.
Over 200 people submitted anthem videos. 69% of the 191 Community Foundations activated the campaign locally.
Over 100 community champions were celebrated in local communities and in social media & advertising.
For business and new client enquiries, please contact Brad Usherwood at:
busherwood@yieldbranding.com
416-565-7666
Copyright © 2026 Yield Branding. All rights reserved.
