Creative Boom: Brooklyn gets shown some love by Mother New York

Published in: Creative Boom

A new pro-bono OOH campaign by the Big Apple agency aims to inspire new donors to support Brooklyn’s change-making nonprofits.

Last October, we revealed how Mother New York had created a new name, visual identity and advertising for the Brooklyn Community Foundation, an organisation committed to equity, justice and change in the borough.

Now, the two partners are back with an OOH (out of home) campaign titled “Show Brooklyn Some Love”, centred around stories of change-making Brooklyn nonprofits. As with the previous identity design, Mother New York developed this new campaign pro bono.

The campaign is designed to inspire and engage a new wave of Brooklyn residents and a new generation of Brooklyn givers to champion local organisations working towards a more just and equitable borough.

Despite being home to 30 per cent of the City’s population and 30 per cent of the City’s nonprofits, Brooklyn organisations receive just 7.6 per cent of charitable funding according to this recent report.

Buses to billboards

The campaign premiered at the Barclays Center, at the home opener for the New York Liberty’s 2024 season last month. Throughout June, ads will be placed on subways, buses, billboards and guerilla postering throughout the borough, as well as street pole banners in Downtown Brooklyn and the neighbourhood of Dumbo.

The campaign’s centrepiece is a complete takeover of the Bedford Avenue station in Williamsburg, a neighbourhood at the junction of old and new Brooklyn.

The campaign features five organisations that have recently won the Brooklyn Org Spark Prize, which honour that celebrates outstanding nonprofits advancing justice and equity in the borough:

• Mixteca, which serves the health, social, education, and legal needs of immigrant communities.
• Groundswell , which brings together youth and artists to create murals for social change.
• Workers Justice Project, a worker centre that fights for better work conditions and social justice for low-wage immigrant workers.
• Arab American Family Support Center, which empowers immigrants and refugees with the tools they need to acclimate to the world around them.
• Sure We Can, a recycling centre, community hub, and sustainability centre.

Dr Jocelynne Rainey, president and CEO of Brooklyn Org, explains the campaign’s concept. “Brooklyn Org gives everyone a seat at the table and a role to play in driving social change forward in our borough,” she says. But you can’t know you’ve got a seat unless you’ve been invited. This campaign is our invitation to every Brooklynite to join us, donate, and spark change.”

Nedal Ahmed, executive creative director of Mother New York, adds: “Brooklyn is a beloved borough, even outside New York. We wanted to turn that love into an invitation. Every action by Brooklyn Org and its partner organisations is an act of love towards Brooklyn, and we wanted the whole borough to feel that and want to become part of it.”