Born Brave Appeal — Mercy Health Foundation
Building a $1M+ fundraising platform for one of Australia's leading neonatal intensive care units.
Brand Strategy / Narrative Strategy / Fundraising Strategy / Campaign Concept / Naming / Tagline Development / Visual Identity / Brand Guidelines / Storytelling Framework / Raisely Skin / Fundraising Campaign / Print & Digital Templates
Good Design Award Winners
in Social Impact
Global & Australian
Good Design Awards ’24
Gold Winner
Technology Branding
MELBOURNE Betterfuture
Design Awards ’25
Born Brave is a long-term storytelling, engagement and philanthropy platform designed to generate more than $1 million in sustained funding for the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Mercy Hospital for Women.
Rather than a fundraising campaign, it was designed as a system for belief that transforms world-class neonatal care into shared understanding, strengthens donor confidence and builds sustained philanthropic investment over time.
At its heart is a simple idea.
Some babies are born too early.
Some are born too fragile.
But in the Mercy NICU, they are born brave.
Challenge
World-class neonatal care was already saving lives every day. The challenge was ensuring more people understood its impact and inspiring the long-term philanthropic investment needed to secure its future.
Its multidisciplinary teams provide continuous life-saving support for extremely premature and medically complex babies while advancing neonatal research that improves outcomes for future generations.
The capability was never in question.
The challenge was visibility.
Despite its expertise and impact, much of this work remained unseen beyond the hospital. Clinical excellence was not being matched by public understanding, limiting awareness, donor engagement and long-term philanthropic investment.
The opportunity was not to improve the care, but to better express it.
Mercy Health Foundation needed a flagship fundraising and advocacy platform capable of operating over multiple years. One that could unite clinical excellence, human experience and philanthropy into a single story, strengthening donor confidence, building lasting engagement and generating more than $1 million in sustained support for the NICU.
APPROACH
We immersed ourselves in the NICU ecosystem to understand not just how care is delivered, but what families, clinicians and researchers believed made it extraordinary.
Working alongside neonatal clinicians, surgeons, doctors, nurses, midwives, allied health teams, researchers, hospital leadership, Mercy Health Foundation and families of NICU babies, we explored what makes neonatal care extraordinary beyond the clinical outcomes.
Four principles consistently emerged:
- Bravery is not learned here. It arrives at birth.
- Care is never singular. It is continuous, layered and collective.
- Survival is more than a medical outcome. It is emotional, relational and system-supported.
- Extraordinary care requires extraordinary infrastructure. Clinical, emotional and financial.
These insights became the strategic foundation for everything that followed.
Born Brave
The most powerful ideas are often the simplest. A single thought became the foundation for a platform capable of bringing together fundraising, advocacy, storytelling and community engagement under one enduring narrative.
Born Brave reframes neonatal care around a simple but powerful truth.
These babies are not made brave. They are born brave.
At the centre of the identity is the baby, surrounded by the bear, a symbol of the invisible network of clinicians, technology, research and family support that protects every child in NICU.
Rather than focusing on vulnerability alone, Born Brave celebrates the extraordinary system of care that helps every fragile beginning become a story of hope.
Explore the Born Brave Raisely site
Mercy & Friends
Complex clinical care became a storytelling world that families, donors and the wider community could immediately understand. Every character gives visible form to an otherwise invisible system of care.
To make neonatal care more accessible, we created Mercy & Friends, a narrative framework that translates specialist care into clear, human stories without oversimplifying its complexity.
- Mercy the Bear represents protection and emotional stability.
- Incu the Giraffe represents incubators and life support systems.
- Joey the Kangaroo represents skin-to-skin bonding and developmental care.
- Maven the Owl represents clinical expertise and decision making.
Together, they create a shared language that helps families, supporters and the broader community better understand the many people and systems behind every baby’s care.
Impact
When people understand extraordinary care, they become more willing to support it. By making the invisible visible, Born Brave transformed awareness into lasting belief and deeper philanthropic engagement.
Born Brave replaced fragmented fundraising communications with a unified narrative platform that strengthened donor confidence and clarified why ongoing support matters.
By making complex neonatal care easier to understand, the platform established stronger foundations for long-term fundraising, advocacy and community engagement, creating a model designed to grow belief and support over time.
Outcome
Born Brave wasn't designed as a campaign with an end date. It was built as a long-term strategic asset, giving Mercy Health Foundation a platform that can continue evolving alongside the NICU for years to come.
Storyfolk delivered a comprehensive storytelling and fundraising platform including:
- Unified narrative strategy
- Campaign concept and messaging
- Visual identity system
- Mercy & Friends storytelling framework
- Multi-channel fundraising toolkit
- Campaign and event collateral
- Website and digital communications
- Long-term engagement framework
Today, Mercy Health Foundation has a scalable platform that aligns storytelling, donor experience and fundraising into one cohesive system, strengthening every interaction and building momentum for future giving.
Launch event
Launching Born Brave
From heartfelt speeches to the official unveiling, the Born Brave Appeal launch brought together supporters, clinicians and families to celebrate the beginning of a campaign that will help change lives. Explore the highlights from the event and see how the new brand came to life.
Read the launch event recap →
What our clients have to say:
Chief Executive Officer, Mercy Health Foundation
Partnerships | Philanthropy | Marketing | Strategy
“Storyfolk brought both heart and discipline to the Born Brave appeal. They understood the importance of telling this story with respect and honesty, and delivered creative that not only honours our families but also inspires our donors to act.”
Work with us:
If you are interested in working or collaborating with us, please tell us a little about yourself, your project and timeline.
We will get back to you shortly 🙂
