We’re proud to be a part of helping the event become one of the largest, single-day philanthropic events in our region. In three short years, just under $600,000 has been raised for charity.

Photo by Stacy Fenner. To see more visit his site.

The Rusty Ball presented by The Rusty Griswolds, in partnership with TradinPaper.com, Shop-a-Dealer, Graeter’s, Skyline Chili, Montgomery Inn Barbecue Sauce, and Openfield Creative took place on Saturday, November 20, 2010 at the Duke Energy Convention Center. 101 Charitable organizations from across our region sold tickets for the event in support of their specific causes. The Rusty Ball featured music by area cover band, The Rusty Griswolds. There were also silent and live auctions, as well as, other activities and surprises. Each year, all proceeds from The Rusty Ball are disbursed to each charitable organization based on their percentage of ticket sales.

How does it work?
The Rusty Ball is a new kind of open collaborative community fundraising platform that provides beneficiary groups the opportunity to sell tickets to an event that is planned and executed on their behalf by a Planning Committee. The group consists of over 20 individuals and representatives from area partner companies. Many people in the group are lifelong friends but many are people who got involved after hearing about the idea and attending previous events. But the common bond is that we are all passionate about working hard to give back to the community (not to mention being mutually committed to having fun in the process).

It takes a village to plan and execute something this special. The Village People make this happen… hmm… scratch that. But there is a cop involved – he heads up security for the event. We call him the Ball Buster. But I digress. Back to the point – this is a story of a growing group of amazing people who have banded together to do something truly significant in their community. We’re honored to have had the opportunity to get to know them.

Openfield’s role in creating the biggest ball of them all:

As the Marketing Chair on the Planning Committee, our role is to provide the vision and execution for the brand experience across all online and offline touchpoints. Yes, a bit buzz-wordy. But there are so many different creative opportunities that it’s hard not to use industry jargon to be efficient. We donate our time to provide the design and copywriting for the marketing and communications platform that includes the website, social media outreach, print ads, event signage, even wine bottles and commemorative guitars.

Why we do it:
To be clear, this is a labor of love for us. But we also tie it to an overall strategy for our business. Our involvement satisfies three main goals for us:

• We get to act on our desire to give back to the community in which we’re raising children.
• From a creative standpoint, we get to do pretty much whatever we want. This is important because it gives us an outlet to experiment and demonstrate our core capabilities groups with virtually complete creative freedom.
• We think it’s fantastic exposure for our business to be part of an event that ignites so many people each year. Rather than just telling people we’re great, it gives us a forum to show what we’re capable of. People see the creative work we’ve produced for the event and they make an emotional connection with it. It’s extremely rewarding to watch it play out the way it has. And it’s the one time we won’t cry if you laugh at our work.

A brief history by the numbers:

2008

• 56 participating charities
• $85,000 in total revenue
• $8,000 in sponsorships

2009

• 91 participating charities
• $207,000 total revenue raised
• $8,500 in sponsorships

2010

• 101 participating charities
• $302,000 in total revenue
• $85,000 in sponsorships (yes, tenfold!)

Sponsorship rose tenfold from $8,500 to $85,000 in 2010.

Along the way, more and more businesses have joined in on the fun as the word has spread. Key sponsors include (but are not limited to):

• Shop-a-Dealer Magazine and TradinPaper.com (our first ever title sponsors).
• Graeter’s, Skyline and Montgomery Inn Barbecue Sauce (a group that joined together as a title sponsor).
• Frost Brown Todd (with us for multiple years now providing support in drumming up interest in table sponsorships among the local business community, as well as, providing advice).
• We’d also like to thank Worldwide Graphics for jumping in at the last minute and donating event banners.

To learn more about the Rusty Ball from the people who attended the event, visit the Facebook page and read people’s reactions. It’s truly heart-warming.

You can also visit the website to see a full list of beneficiary groups and sponsoring companies.

We hope you’ll join us for the RB11!

But until then, here’s a look back at this past year’s event…

Photos by John Klare. To see more visit his site.

Photos by Matt Adams. To see more visit his site.

Photos by Stacy Fenner. To see more visit his site.

ArtsWave organizes the community to paint the street, which causes us to smile more.

These are people thinking big – like, a half-mile kinda big. Imagine creating a painting on a canvas equal to the square footage of a football field. Well ArtsWave did more than just imagine it – they organized it and made it happen. The organization’s mission is to help create the kind of thriving arts environment that makes the Cincinnati region a better place to live, work, play and stay. We saw this video at the recent TEDxCincy event earlier this month, but were just reminded of it again of its awesomeness when we got our weekly SoapBox newsletter.

On September 1, 1,500 people from neighborhoods all over the region gathered to paint a this half-mile of pavement not far from our office. Check out this time-lapse video for a minute and a half view of the 12 hour process. Thanks ArtsWave!

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We’re helping local charitable organizations promote their causes for a fundraising event that’s near and dear to us, The Rusty Ball.

As the third annual Rusty Ball draws near, we’re helping to equip the 99 participating beneficiary groups with promotional materials they can use to urge ticket purchasers to select their group when buying tickets to the event. Starting October 6, 2010, those who purchase tickets at the website get to choose which group benefits from the proceeds of their purchase.

Openfield Creative became involved with The Rusty Ball at the ground level, donating our creative efforts as the marketing partner since the event’s inception in 2008. Now in its third year, The Rusty Ball is on course to sell out for a second consecutive year. In what’s becoming a tradition, we’ve once again created a customized poster for every organization involved.

It was fun to see the posters hanging around town from ice cream to auto body shops. But beyond the anecdotal evidence, compelling download stats from the 2009 show made it a must-do for the 2010 event. Plus, now we know how long it takes to export 99 custom PDFs – about 3 hours.

Ready to download yours?

2009 Rusty Ball Highlights:

• 91 charities involved
• 3,000 in attendance (sold out the Duke Energy Convention Center)
• $207,000 total revenue drummed up
• $48,000+ raised in silent and live auctions

“A what?,” you ask?

That’s right, if you haven’t heard, we’re heavily involved with a unique fundraising platform in our community called The Rusty Ball. The event was the brainchild of local 80’s cover band sensation, The Rusty Griswolds. The band was getting so many requests to play benefit concerts that they knew they could never accommodate them all. So they decided to throw a party and invite charities of all sizes, shapes and missions to use the event as a revenue source. Event attendees select which charitable organization will directly benefit from the purchase of their tickets.

Openfield Creative’s role is to provide all design, development and social media marketing outreach for the event. We created the brand identity, website and provide the voice of The Rusty Ball on Twitter and Facebook. OFC Partner and Creative Strategist, Brian Keenan, serves as the marketing chair on the planning board for the event.

In year one, we proved it could work.
The first Rusty Ball was held at the Northern Kentucky Convention Center in November of 2008. The event featured 56 charities. It came together with less than 6 months planning but when 1,000 people showed up, we knew we had a great idea on our hands.

In year two, we tripled ticket sales resulting in a sell out.
The second annual Rusty Ball was moved to the Duke Energy Convention Center. Thanks to the hard work and dedication of all involved, the event sold out before the doors even opened. The demand was so great that calls for available tickets rang out from Facebook to Craiglist. That night, 3,000 people packed the house – a 300% increase in attendance during one of the most challenging fundraising years on record.

Save the date: November 20, 2010! We hope you’ll join us.

Kid’s cooking for kids!

When nationally recognized food photographer Teri Campbell rang OFC about volunteering to collaborate on the creation of a kid’s recipe competition that would benefit children in the community, our mouths watered over the potential to sink our teeth into a tasty creative opportunity. Shortly after working together on the design of the cookbook, the scope of the project soon grew to include additional online and offline promotional vehicles.

OFC contributed several key ingredients to the mix: the brand identity and the design of the cookbook, website and additional promotional materials. It’s been a real treat for us to collaborate with great people and apply our creativity to a project that will benefit an organization that has made such a lasting impact on our community. Proceeds from the sale of the cookbook will benefit Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.

Hungry for more? Visit the Small Fries site to learn how you can get your copy of the book. To learn more about Teri Studios, visit www.terishootsfood.com