Project Case Study

"The Springs” Tri-Cities Children's Center Donor Wall

The Context:

The Springs Tri-Cities Children’s Centre (STCC) is a unique collaboration between non-profit organizations Kinsight and SHARE. The Springs brings together a variety of professionals to provide social services ranging from child development programs to speech language therapy and parental supports, and serves more than 2000 families and children per year.

The Springs is the result of many years of hard work, perseverance and collaboration. To celebrate their efforts and recognize the support from their founding donors, the STCC wanted to install a beautiful donor wall on a prime location in their lobby.

STCC had a very tight deadline of less than one month between when they first contacted us and when they needed it installed for their grand opening.

The Vision:

To recognize the collaborative nature of this multi-purpose development, STCC envisioned a honeycomb or beehive for their donor wall design to symbolize the shared vision and the “hive” of housing and family services that work together to create this special and unique space.

As a non-profit, their budget was limited, though they still wanted an installation that was impactful, beautifully designed, and complementary to the interior design of their newly renovated lobby. They did not want to sacrifice on quality or risk feeling embarrassed by thanking their founding donors with an underwhelming donor wall.  Also, because of the high volume of people that pass through this space, it was important to ensure that the donor wall components could not be pried off the wall easily.

Additionally, STCC also wanted to provide each donor with a symbol of appreciation, providing them with a lasting reminder of their support to proudly display within their respective organizations.

The Design:

Our design team presented a few concepts using honeycomb shapes as building blocks to create the overall donor wall design. We explored several configurations sizes with the client and ended up with various sizes of wooden honeycomb panels, with each size representing a level of financial contribution.

Once the client approved the design, we cut the honeycomb panels out of Maple TrueWood, then engraved them with our solar powered laser. Each honeycomb shape was laser engraved with the donor's name on a wooden honeycomb. In the end all the honeycombs came together to create a beehive.

To simplify installation, we applied heavy duty double-sided tape on each honeycomb panel for a strong and powerful hold. As the TrueWood panels are lightweight, they are easy to attach and do not require drilling, so the installation will not damage the integrity of the wall. Our donor walls include a customized DIY mounting template which allows for easy installation.

For the take home pieces we created honeycomb shaped crystal awards that were sandblast engraved with a personalized message of appreciation for each donor to proudly display for years to come. Each of these crystal awards came with a satin-lined presentation box. 

The Materials:

Maple TrueWood - custom cut and engraved with solar powered laser
Optic Crystal Awards - personalized with sandblast engraving

The Result:

Although our donor walls are designed for easy DIY installation without professionals, STCC requested installation by Eclipse. For the installation, it only took 2 two people, the mounting template (included in every design), and a medium box that included the donor pieces and some basic tools.

After carefully positioning the mounting template on the wall it was time for the fun to begin! We peeled the backing off the double sided tape, then carefully positioned each honeycomb into its assigned slot in the mounting template. Once in position, we firmly pressed each piece against the wall to secure it. After all the honeycombs were in place, we removed the template, and voila, the donor wall was easily installed and complete with no mess or disruption!

The unveiling of the donor wall during their appreciation event was a huge success and was greatly enhanced by the matching crystal awards that were presented to their donors. 

Donor walls can create really positive impacts for the organizations that install them. In addition to being beautiful, they are effective at publicly recognizing the donors that made the project possible, while also inspiring new donors and supporters to contribute.