Case Study
Collège La Cité
Collège La Cité is a French-language post-secondary educational institution founded over 25 years ago and located in Ottawa, with offices elsewhere in the province, including Toronto. It is the largest French-language college of applied arts and technology in Ontario, offering some 140 programs and welcoming over 7,000 students.
The Storyteller has been working with La Cité since 2021. The various projects incorporate several communications components ranging from writing, editing and translation, to consulting and “strategizing”, and including graphic design.
Background
Collège La Cité is a major player in education, being the only entirely francophone post-secondary institution in the Ottawa region. The college welcomes French-speaking students from the greater Ottawa area and Eastern Ontario, as well as from all over the province, the Quebec education system – particularly the Outaouais and Greater Montreal, and many French-speaking countries.
La Cité’s Philanthropie · Diplômés department was created a few years ago to take over the activities formerly managed by La Cité’s foundation. The team approached The Storyteller in 2021 with the intent of refocusing its activities on its philanthropic component and fostering a sense of belonging to the college within its community of graduates and donors following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mandate and Outcomes
The Storyteller was first commissioned to lead interviews and produce graduate and donor profiles for La Cité’s Iddéo blog to showcase inspiring individuals from the college’s community while promoting its philanthropic arm. To this day, some 30 profiles have been created, and the campaign has become a key component of the Philanthropie · Diplôméss communications strategy.
Since this first project, the sector has turned to The Storyteller for other needs. For example, a donor and partner toolkit comprising promotional and informative material was designed and developed to provide the team with a useful and relevant tool for soliciting donations and sharing success stories.
The department also called on The Storyteller to rethink the structure and content of its website, which was difficult to navigate and didn’t offer all the information available and sought by users. After several discussions and analysis of the team’s and needs and those of its clientele, a new structure was proposed, along with suggestions for improving the site’s functionality, user experience and SEO. Existing texts were reviewed, relocated and redesigned, while new content was written.
Other mandates carried out for the department include the design and writing of thematic fact sheets and the preparation of applications to the Prime Minister’s Award for La Cité graduates who have accomplished great things.
Over the years, The Storyteller has also been called upon by other departments at La Cité, including La Cité des affaires, whom we continue to support with the writing and translation of marketing content, reports and documents of all kinds.
Our two cents
As a service provider, working with the same customer over a long period of time enables us to get to know them so we can become faster and more efficient in our interventions, and even anticipate the customer’s needs. The breadth of our services enables us to respond to a variety of requests, and the relationship and trust that develop over time mean that all parties come out winners.
