Case Study:
UNM Foundation partners with Lavendr on launch films for a $1.2 billion campaign
Lavendr partnered with the UNM Foundation to shape the launch video system for Accelerate New Mexico, a landmark private-giving campaign with a stated $1.2 billion goal. The assignment to Lavendr: turn a complex, statewide mission into a cohesive human story. A story that could inspire donors across generations and giving levels, and carry the campaign from its public launch into years of future use.
Services provided:
Creative Direction
Story Development
Script Writing
Interview Planning
Video Production
Video Editing
The Challenge
The UNM Foundation needed more than another institutional film. Earlier short-form donor videos had worked for specific audiences and events, but captured only part of a much larger story. For the public phase of the campaign, the UNM Foundation needed a connected narrative spanning student opportunity, health, research, creativity, community, and stewardship; while making clear how individual giving can matter, whether the gift is modest or major. The work also had to feel unmistakably rooted in New Mexico.
The first donor-videos were being made for a September 17, 2026 campaign launch, including a highly immersive event built around a 12-by-40-foot screen. That meant our creative had to work as a cinematic centerpiece and as reusable campaign content.
The Approach
Build the story around people and place.
Our approach started with listening before making. We came in without a fixed format and looked for the human truth inside a statewide mission; the part that makes someone care before they’re ever asked to. We explored who really made UNM special, from Quantum scientists to Flamenco dancers, and built the story around real people making real impact. The thinking was simple: if the feeling is honest, the ask takes care of itself.
Design a system.
We treated the launch as a beginning rather than a finish line. From the outset the creative was built to hold its feeling across very different conditions - an immersive event, clips on social media, a donor conversation months later - so the UNM Foundation wouldn’t need to start over each time it had a new audience to reach.
Trust in Creativity.
We believe human emotion is what moves people to act, and creativity reaches to the core of our emotions. Clear information and a clear ask matter, and the campaign gives donors a direct invitation to take part, but facts alone rarely change what someone does next. So we leave room for abstraction: images, music, and moments that let viewers bring their own experience to the work. That space is where a donor stops watching a campaign and starts seeing themselves in it.
The Work
Anthem
The centerpiece, and the one video that has to carry the whole campaign on its own. Its job is to move a viewer from pride in place, to the tangible human consequences of giving, to an open invitation to take part, without ever turning into a hard sell.
Shared Memory
Where the Anthem makes the case at campaign scale, Shared Memory makes it personal: memory, tradition, and continuity, and the idea that a gift keeps something alive for the people who come after. It's the piece for donors with existing affinity to UNM — alumni and families who give because the place is part of who they are.
Beyond New Mexico
This video answers the question a skeptical donor asks: why does a gift to UNM matter past campus? By showing UNM's people, ideas, research, and creativity traveling outward and value coming back to communities, it broadens the campaign from place-pride to demonstrated impact. It's useful for research, health, and community priorities, and for donors who give to outcomes rather than nostalgia.
Profile Library (Coming Soon)
Five two-minute interview profiles were delivered to deepen the stories across campaign priorities. Where the Anthem, Shared Memory, and Beyond New Mexico each make a single argument at campaign scale, the profiles supply the proof at human scale: interview-led pieces in which the impact of giving is described by the people who lived it. They inherit the same look, tone, and language as the launch work, so a profile can stand on its own in a donor meeting or a social feed without breaking the platform.