Casey House
AOG CASE STUDYRoom by room: A different kind of gratitude report
Client
Casey House Foundation
Toronto, ON
Project
2025 Annual Gratitude Report
Services
Creative Strategy, Copywriting, Art Direction, Photography
Project highlights
→ A room-by-room journey through Casey House, told from a composite client perspective
→ First-person donor framing used throughout (because donors who feel seen give more)
→ Full on-site art direction ensured the photography matched the story being told
Casey House is Canada's only specialty hospital dedicated to caring for people living with and at risk of HIV.
Based in Toronto, they provide everything from 24-hour inpatient care and end-of-life support to a drop-in clinic, peer support programs, a daily lunch program, and harm reduction services.
It is, in every sense of the word, a community. And like all communities, it runs on the generosity of people who believe in it.
The Challenge
Most annual reports follow the same formula: financials, program stats, a letter from the CEO, a donor list. They are accurate and thorough…and yet they’re so often not very engaging or meaningful for the people they are actually meant for:
The generous donors who make it happen.
Casey House had a small in-house fundraising team and a deeply loyal donor base. What they needed was a stewardship piece that matched the warmth and dignity of the care they provide every single day.
They needed something that would make donors feel the impact of their giving, not just understand it.
The Work
The Agents started with a simple but powerful idea: instead of reporting on Casey House, we would take donors on a journey through it.
Room by room, service by service, the report follows a composite client from their first nervous steps through the front door to their afternoons in the rooftop healing garden.
The entire piece is written in first person, putting donors directly inside the experience as it unfolds. Each section opens with the words "You gave..." and speaks directly back to the donor, making them feel present in every moment the report describes.
It is a fundraising technique we believe in deeply: donors who feel seen give more, give again, and tell others.
The result was a piece that spoke directly to the donor.
It wasn’t so much a report as a beautiful heartfelt letter from person to person.
The Result
For many Casey House donors, this was their first glimpse inside the building their generosity helps sustain. Through the "You gave..." framing, they were invited into rooms they had never seen, alongside people whose lives they had touched.
The report did what the best stewardship always does: it reminded donors that their gift was not a transaction but rather a life-changing act of generosity. It was someone to talk to. It was hope and healing.
And it was all made possible because of them.
Success here is not measured in response rates. It is measured in the feeling a donor gets when they turn the last page and think: I am so glad I gave.
Your donors deserve to feel like this.
Great stewardship takes strategy, creativity, and a genuine belief that donors are partners worth celebrating. If you are ready to create something that makes your donors feel the way Casey House's donors felt, we would love to talk!