Archives: Case Studies

Two stories in The New York Times involved our Press Secretary as spokesperson, translator and facilitator for primary sources and story development. One was on Chinese catechumens and the other on Hispanic catechumens in New York City.

Our Press Secretary has a great relationship with key media contacts in New York City and beyond. By keeping in touch, she was able to become a trusted subject matter expert for Catholicism. This rapport and these conversations led to our Press Secretary becoming a translator for the reporter. So much was able to be revealed about the nature of catechumens joining the Catholic Church during this time in the life of the Church, that two stories actually came out of these conversations and topics:

New York Times – Spiritually Speaking, I am Free

New York Times – Becoming Catholic in the Age of Scandal

Tags Catechumens

When the Year of Vocations was announced, it was clear to the Rector of our minor seminary that it was time for a new website. Fr. Sears called up DeSales and explained that they hadn’t had a website in five years. We quickly purchased the desired domain and got to work, understanding what was important for the prospective and enrolled seminarians of the Cathedral Seminary House of Formation.

Cue what is now a gorgeous, modern site that serves the needs of seminarians, giving them online library access and keeping their families up to date with events and photos. And, these features signal to prospective priests the kinds of resources they will find attending this key piece of the St. Charles Borromeo partnership, connecting the minor seminary to the other seminaries in the New York City area–all part of the St. Joseph seminary system.

The site also draws attention to the Masters in Theology program that is available to laity. Through this work, the work of the diocese, and the ongoing promotions that Cathedral Seminary does, they have increased the number of seminarians in attendance, and demand for their other theology programs.

Tags Discernment, Seminary, Vocations

Catholic Migration Services offers free legal screenings and services to documented and undocumented immigrants residing in Brooklyn and Queens. Services include Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA), family reunification, asylum and humanitarian relief, naturalization, and deportation defense. It is an important ministry here in the Diocese of Brooklyn, also known as the Diocese of Immigrants.

These services cost money, of course. Before the involvement of DeSales Media’s Government Relations, Catholic Migration Services had received $0 in funding from the New York City Council. That number is now in excess of $1.2 million, each year.

At the Diocese of Brookyn’s Migration Mass in 2017, Father Patrick J. Keating, CEO of Catholic Migration Services, preached the homily.

Bishop DiMarzio with the faithful — Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio and parishioners from one of the many ethnic apostolates in attendance

Our Government Affairs people work with City, State, and Federal elected officials and agencies. In this capacity, the Director and Deputy Director are registered lobbyists at the City, State, and Federal levels, and represent the interests of DeSales Media Group, the Diocese of Brooklyn, and Catholic Migration Services, including the issues of immigration, poverty, school funding, school safety, and disaster relief.

Learn more about the good work Catholic Migration Services does at catholicmigration.org, a website that DeSales Media built, manages and maintains.

Tags Development, Diocese, Fundraising, Grants, Migration

We at DeSales Media believe it’s important to develop employees professionally, personally, and spiritually. We seek the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity to be present in our workplace. Daily, we have volunteers read morning prayers and a noon-time Angelus across the building over the loudspeaker. Monthly, we organize weekend volunteer trips so that employees have plenty of opportunities to give back to the community. These include visiting nursing homes, preparing parishes for Christmas, feeding the homeless, and more.

In addition to regular departmental get-togethers, the entire company celebrates together twice a year. It’s important to cultivate our leisure time to be a beacon in the culture, and personally, to fully discover and know who we each are. How else are we to follow St. Francis DeSales’ advice, “Be who you are and be that well” ?

But our organized outings aren’t all fun and games, or even local outreach. Have a look here and here to see the major mission trips we have taken to hurricane-ravaged areas.

Tags Charities, Giving Back

We at DeSales had a meeting with Catholic Cemeteries, in which they expressed the desire to update their reel, or possibly create a new video, showing their recently constructed mausoleum crypts. The DeSales Production team went out to St. Charles Cemetery and filmed video and drone footage, bringing out the beauty of the grounds. DeSales also performed all editing and post-production, to create this final video showcase for the organization:

Print and digital ads were also designed for the campaign to increase pre-planning signups.

Catholic Cemeteries continues to trust DeSales as a key advertising partner for their business, and we love working with them too!

images from campaign for Catholic Cemeteries

St. Joseph Seminary in Dunwoodie, New York, is the major seminary located in the Archdiocese of New York. They came to us at DeSales Media, hoping to promote all that the seminary’s network of campuses has to offer.

After our visit to the beautiful campus in Yonkers, we worked with them to create specific objectives with measurable goals. In this way, we could be sure to reach all of the target audience segments, and measure when we accomplished this and to what degree it worked.

The main creative execution was this explainer/welcome video for the seminary to use in all of their promotions:

By creating and distributing such high quailty materials, we were able to communicate to other Bishops that there is, in fact, a world-class Catholic education happening for adults in the greatest city in the world.

And we were able to communicate to prospective Master’s degree candidates that they’re able to receive an accredited Masters in Theology from an actual seminary — at four convenient locations in and around NYC.

Tags Seminary

Futures in Education is the scholarship foundation for the Diocese of Brooklyn. DeSales Media is a strong believer in giving our children the foundation they need to succeed spiritually, mentally, and physically. DeSales has worked with this area of the development office to create the Futures logo and branding, provide strategic marketing direction, create and maintain their website, and more.

Every year, Futures in Education must make its appeal to donors to make sure they have adequate funding, that as many children as possible might receive well-deserved funding for Catholic education. Here is the video that DeSales created to help make Futures’ efforts better understood and attended to:

Tags Campaigns, Development, Fundraising, Promotion, Scholarships, Schools

When the Evangelization Scholarship was first launched in the Diocese of Brooklyn, it didn’t get as much traction as it could have. It is one of five scholarships that Futures in Education provides for children with financial need, to allow them to attend Catholic primary school affordably. Specifically, it allows underprivileged children who are enrolled in a CCD program to transfer to a Catholic school at a fraction of the cost.

Being as this was a cross-disciplinary effort, DeSales Media worked with Catholic Foundation (the development office), the Superintendent of Schools, and the Secretariat for Evangelization and Catechesis (faith formation office) to understand the challenges involved. It seemed that some of the biggest hurdles to a would-be recipient family are the ideas that Catholic school is too expensive or too far away from home.

To increase applications for scholarships, DeSales launched a search and display media campaign, targeting families searching (and browsing) both for Catholic primary schools and private primary schools in NYC. The creative was bright and featured a diverse range of kids, both to reflect the diversity found in Brooklyn and Queens, and so that we had plenty of data to measure exactly what combination of art and copy worked best.

The ads clicked through to two versions of the landing page:

The campaign was a success and led to a huge uptick in the number of scholarship applications received. You can still visit the landing pages today here and here.

Tags Development, Faith Formation, Schools

Almost every school, parish, and organization we work with has a social media presence, but few are able to invest the time to manage the lifecycle of an effective social media campaign to deliver the results they are seeking.

Our social media campaigns are focused on clear objectives. We test creative, target key audiences, and measure results to ensure we optimize campaigns cost effectively.

Whether it’s a newspaper subscription campaign, driving donations, promoting events, or simply raising awareness, our digital campaigns deliver results.

Tags Charities, Development, Events, Promotion, Schools