The Lemelson Foundation

Since 2006, ELISE has worked with The Lemelson Foundation, a private philanthropy whose mission is to improve lives through invention in the U.S. and developing countries. We provide comprehensive communications services for The Foundation which include the promotion of the Design for the Other 90% exhibition, branding and design of the InventingGreen™ portfolio of projects, and media strategy for “Tech 4 Society,” a joint Ashoka-Lemelson celebration scheduled for 2010.

APPROACH

During the spring of 2007, ELISE assisted with the publicity efforts for the opening of Design for the Other 90%—an exhibition created by the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt—for which the Foundation was the lead sponsor.

RESULTS

Our ability to create sophisticated pitches that succeed is evidenced by coverage we secured about the exhibition and its participating organizations in BusinessWeek, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, in addition to regional newspapers such as The Miami Herald. The New York Times story was the #1 e-mailed story of the day on nytimes.com, and The Wall Street Journal article resulted in several thousand dollars of donations to one of the featured organizations.

Our strategic approach was directly responsible for 35 million media impressions during the month it opened, The combined efforts of the Cooper-Hewitt and ELISE on this publicity campaign generated favorable press coverage worldwide and increased demand for the two-year traveling exhibition. Currently Design for the Other 90% resides at The Foundation’s new global headquarters in Portland, Oregon.